Your Company Just Doubled in Size. What Happens to the Culture?
An acquisition can double your headcount overnight. Building an organization that works at that size takes deliberate choices about culture, power, and how work gets done. Here’s where leaders should start.
You Say Quality Comes First. What Gets Rewarded?
The quality poster says one thing. The production board says another. What happens when an employee has to choose? A look at how metrics, recognition, and leadership responses shape manufacturing culture—and what COOs can do when those signals conflict.
Your Customer Complaint Has an Employee Experience
When customers keep hearing “I have to check with another team,” the person on the phone may be having the same frustrating experience from the other side.
More Plants. More People. Same Culture?
More plants, more shifts, more people—and more assumptions about how work gets done. Here’s how to make the C-suite case for a manufacturing culture assessment that supports clearer decisions during acquisitions and rapid growth.
The Cake Is Collapsing: What The Great British Baking Show Teaches Us About Responding to Mistakes
The cake is collapsing. Does the room offer help, assign blame, or quietly look away? What The Great British Baking Show reveals about workplace mistakes—and what your response teaches everyone watching.
What Happens After the Employee Survey?
The survey closed. The dashboard arrived. Now comes the part employees will remember: what leaders understand, decide, and explain after asking for their input.
“We're Just Busy” Might Mean Something Else
Everyone is working hard. Calendars are full. Yet the important work keeps waiting. “We're just busy” may be true, but it may not be the whole diagnosis.
The Decision That Keeps Coming Back
You made the decision in March. Revisited it in April. Now it is back on Thursday's agenda. The repetition is a clue about how decisions work in your organization.
Everyone Agreed in the Meeting. So Why Is Nothing Moving?
Everyone nodded. The meeting ended on time. Three weeks later, the work is going in four directions. What looked like alignment may have been a collection of different assumptions.
The Workaround Is Working. What Is It Hiding?
The unofficial spreadsheet. The person everyone messages when the process stalls. Workarounds keep things moving, but they can also reveal where the organization is quietly asking people to make up for a broken handoff, unclear ownership, or a system that no longer fits the work.
Your AI Rollout Has an Organizational Design Problem
AI can produce a first draft in minutes. If nobody knows who owns the result or what happens next, the work still gets stuck. Here are three questions to ask about the organization behind your AI rollout.
Fat Bear Week and the Myth of the Lone High Performer
A gloriously round bear deserves applause. But if we want to understand how it got there, we have to look at the river, the salmon, and who gets the best fishing spot.
How to Improve Company Culture: Nurture What Works
A company may have an unmistakable personality, but its culture is shaped by what people experience every day. The good stuff is data, too—and it can show you what to nurture.
Sometimes You Need an Answer. Sometimes You Need a Better Question.
Sometimes an organization needs outside expertise and a clear recommendation. Sometimes a leader needs space to think differently. Here is how to tell whether the problem calls for consulting, coaching, or both.
Your Brand Promise Has an Operating Model
Every promise a company makes to its customers creates requirements inside the organization. Here is how to tell whether your culture, decisions, systems, and ways of working are actually built to deliver it.
Why Your Company Feels Slower as It Grows
Growth should create momentum but sometimes it just makes work feel harder. Here are five signs your company has outgrown its informal ways of working and what needs to align next.
Before Milwaukee Called It Organizational Development, It Was Already Redesigning Work
Milwaukee did not invent organizational development. But long before OD had a name, the city was wrestling with its central questions: how work should be organized, who gets a voice, and what happens when the old way stops working.
Before You Call It a People Problem, Look at the Whole System
When performance slips, it’s easy to blame the people closest to the problem. The Galbraith Star Model helps leaders zoom out and uncover how the wider organizational system may be producing the very issues they’re trying to solve.
Strong Culture Isn’t Enough: What Employee-Owned Companies Reveal About Adaptability
A newly published study of employee-owned companies reveals how organizational culture and alignment can strengthen, or constrain, adaptability.
Change Readiness Assessment: What to Check Before Rolling Out a New Process
The process is documented and training is scheduled. Are the people and working conditions ready for it? A readiness assessment helps leaders find out before rollout.