Collaborative-Culture

What if great leadership isn't about having the answers or maintaining control, but about helping other people flourish?

Most organizations talk about their values, purpose, and commitment to people. But what happens when the way leaders actually behave doesn't align with those promises?

In this episode of Collaborative Culture, Kristine and Monica sit down with Lara Bezerra, former global executive at Bayer and Roche, founder of WorkCoherence, and author of Coherent Leadership: Prosperity and Purpose in All Aspects of Life.

Drawing on more than 30 years of leadership experience across seven countries and three continents, Lara shares a different way of thinking about leadership, one rooted in aligning our purpose, words, actions, and impact.

Together, they explore why trying to control people often backfires, how a leader's everyday language shapes organizational culture, and why even the smallest acts of kindness can create meaningful change.

The conversation also gets personal, exploring how to stay true to your values in difficult work environments, adapt your leadership across cultures, and navigate life's transitions without losing your sense of purpose.

Because leadership isn't just about the results we achieve. It's about who we become, and who we help others become, along the way.

• Leading without control: Why Lara learned that her greatest contribution as a leader wasn't having all the answers, but bringing people together and tapping into their collective wisdom.
• The story behind the story: How a leader's need for control can reveal something deeply important to them—and how curiosity can turn resistance into collaboration.
• What coherent culture actually looks like: Why culture shows up in everyday interactions, how people respond to mistakes, and whether leaders practice what they preach.
• The language of leadership: How the words leaders choose can encourage either competition and fear or collaboration and shared purpose.
• Leadership's ripple effect: Lara's perspective on how repeated workplace experiences can shape people's thinking, behaviors, and lives beyond work.
• The power of everyday kindness: Why something as simple as saying good morning can begin changing the culture around us.
• Leadership across cultures: What Lara learned about balancing universal human needs for dignity and belonging with different cultural expectations.
• Finding coherence through change: Why transitions, uncertainty, and even periods of discomfort can create opportunities to rediscover our purpose.

Connect with Lara Bezerra

• WorkCoherence: https://www.workcoherence.com
• Website: https://www.larabezerra.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/larabezerra

Lara's Book

Coherent Leadership: Prosperity and Purpose in All Aspects of Life

• Book information: https://larabezerra.com/coherent-leadership/
• Available on Amazon and through Barnes & Noble.

Also Mentioned in This Episode

Jim Sholler's problem-solving methodology: Monica references a previous Collaborative Culture episode featuring Jim Sholler and his structured approach to collaborative problem-solving. Listen to Stop Proving. Start Learning: A Better Way to Solve Problems for another perspective on asking better questions and solving problems without blame. Jim's book is Solved in Seven: The Power of Disciplined Problem Solving.

Thanks for Listening!

We’d love to hear from you.

Kristine Gentry, PhD

[email protected]

🌐 www.culturegrove.com

🔗 LinkedIn: Kristine McKenzie Gentry

Monica M. Smith

[email protected]

🌐 www.tradewindscareerconsulting.com

🔗 LinkedIn: Monica Mary Smith

If you enjoyed the show, please: subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who cares about building better teams. 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Almost every company says its people matter. But saying you're "people first" and designing an organization around people are two very different things.

In this episode, we look at three organizations that challenge conventional assumptions about how work should operate and demonstrate different ways organizations can put people-first principles into practice.

Compt: Choice and Agency

Traditional employee benefits often assume the organization knows what employees need. Compt takes a different approach. Its Lifestyle Spending Accounts let employers establish budgets and categories while giving employees greater freedom to choose benefits that fit their own lives.

The cultural lesson isn't simply about benefits. It's about agency. When employees have different lneeds, families, cultures, and circumstances, treating everyone "equally" doesn't necessarily mean giving everyone exactly the same thing.

Buurtzorg: Trusting the People Closest to the Work

Buurtzorg (Dutch for "neighborhood care") offers a different model of home healthcare.

Instead of layers of management and highly prescribed processes, Buurtzorg organizes nurses into small, self-managing teams. The professionals closest to patients have significant authority to organize their work, coordinate care, and make decisions.

The lesson is simple: You can't tell employees you trust them while designing systems that require approval for every meaningful decision.

Trust becomes real when it is reflected in decision rights, processes, and the structure of the work itself.

Costco: Investing in People for the Long Term

Costco's Code of Ethics prioritizes obeying the law, taking care of members, taking care of employees, and respecting suppliers before rewarding shareholders.

That philosophy shows up in competitive pay, benefits for eligible part-time employees, employee development, and a long-term approach to its workforce.

During the episode, we also wondered whether Costco employees commonly rely on public assistance, as has been documented among workers at some large retailers. We looked into it after recording.

Available government data does show some Costco employees participating in programs such as Medicaid and SNAP, so it would be inaccurate to say this never happens. However, Costco appears much less prominently than several other large employers in the available data. A 2026 U.S. Government Accountability Office analysis of Washington State found 256 Costco employees among working Medicaid/SNAP beneficiaries, compared with 2,291 at Amazon, 1,328 at Walmart, 814 at McDonald's, and 641 at Dollar Tree.

What These Three Companies Have in Common

Compt, Buurtzorg, and Costco operate in very different industries and contexts. But they share something important:

Their commitments to people are connected to their operating decisions.

They challenge assumptions that employers always know what employees need, that managers should make the important decisions, or that investing more in employees necessarily comes at the expense of financial performance.

Instead, they build their beliefs into the way work actually happens.

Culture isn't separate from the business. It's embedded in who has authority, where money is spent, how employees are treated, and how work gets done.

Questions to consider:

• How much agency do employees have over decisions that affect their work?

• Are you designing programs around what employees actually need or what leadership assumes they need?

• Where could the people closest to your customers, patients, or work make better decisions if you gave them greater authority?

• If someone examined your organization's systems, budgets, and decision-making authority without seeing your values statement, what would they conclude that you value?

Companies mentioned in this episode:

Compt

Buurtzorg

Costco

Thanks for Listening!

We’d love to hear from you.

Kristine Gentry, PhD

[email protected]

🌐 www.culturegrove.com

🔗 LinkedIn: Kristine McKenzie Gentry

Monica M. Smith

[email protected]

🌐 www.tradewindscareerconsulting.com

🔗 LinkedIn: Monica Mary Smith

If you enjoyed the show, please: subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who cares about building better teams. 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What happens when the management practices that once made you successful stop working across cultures, countries, and time zones?

In this episode of Collaborative Culture, Dr. Kristine Gentry turns the tables and interviews co-host Monica M. Smith about her new book, Making It Real: Amplifying Global Collaboration with the Trade Winds GUIDE Framework.

When experienced leaders begin managing across cultures, they may discover that the approaches that once worked no longer produce the same results. Communication styles differ. Expectations about hierarchy, deadlines, decision-making, and collaboration may remain unspoken. Leaders can find themselves working harder, stepping back into day-to-day management, and still gaining less traction.

In this episode, Dr. Kristine Gentry interviews Collaborative Culture co-host Monica M. Smith about her new book, Making It Real: Amplifying Global Collaboration with the Trade Winds GUIDE Framework.

Monica shares lessons from her experience leading international teams and introduces GUIDE, a framework designed to help leaders and teams strengthen their ability to collaborate across cultural differences:

• Generate
• Understand
• Imagine
• Discern
• Execute

Kristine and Monica explore how global teams can establish shared “house rules” rather than defaulting to the norms of headquarters or expecting one culture to do all the adapting. They also discuss the importance of understanding what motivates individual team members, recognizing different ways of contributing, and creating enough clarity for teams to work more autonomously.

Through stories from India, China, and other international settings, Monica illustrates how leaders can prepare carefully, interpret cultural cues, remain authentic, and adjust when the situation does not unfold as expected.

In this episode:

• Why familiar management practices may stop working in a global environment
• The “gradual dawning” that tells a leader something is not working
• How purpose, individual contribution, and cultural tendencies shape collaboration
• What team “house rules” are—and why every culture should participate in creating them
• How the GUIDE framework supports global leaders and teams
• Why cultural patterns can be useful without defining every individual
• How leaders can adapt their behavior without abandoning authenticity
• Why a colleague’s success can expand what is possible for everyone
• The role of mutual dignity and respect in intercultural leadership
• How leaders can replenish their energy while helping teams become more autonomous

Episode highlights:

• 1:29 — Why Monica finds leading cross-cultural teams exhilarating
• 3:17 — Who Monica wrote the book for
• 4:32 — Recognizing the “gradual dawning” that something is not working
• 6:53 — What global leaders and teams may be missing
• 7:41 — Three lenses for understanding a team
• 12:18 — When leaders should introduce this work
• 14:16 — Establishing shared house rules
• 19:18 — An introduction to the GUIDE framework
• 25:59 — Execution, adaptation, and building trust in China
• 30:20 — Why a colleague’s success is not a threat to your own
• 33:27 — Global collaboration in a changing geopolitical environment

Resources mentioned:

• The 6 Types of Working Genius by Patrick Lencioni and The Table Group
• CliftonStrengths
• Everything DiSC
• Hogan Assessments
• Global Dexterity by Andy Molinsky
• Forging Bonds in a Global Workforce by Andy Molinsky and Melissa Hahn
• The Culture Map by Erin Meyer
• The Pivot by Dave Schoof

Thanks for Listening!

We’d love to hear from you.

Kristine Gentry, PhD

[email protected]

🌐 www.culturegrove.com

🔗 LinkedIn: Kristine McKenzie Gentry

Monica M. Smith

[email protected]

🌐 www.tradewindscareerconsulting.com

🔗 LinkedIn: Monica Mary Smith

If you enjoyed the show, please: subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who cares about building better teams. 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Most leaders agree that empathy matters. Putting it into practice can be harder especially when people disagree, performance falls short, or a difficult decision needs to be made.

In this episode, Dr. Kristine Gentry and Monica M. Smith sit down with Rob Volpe, author of Tell Me More About That: Solving the Empathy Crisis One Conversation at a Time, to explore how empathy becomes a practical leadership skill.

From the frozen vegetable aisle of a Walmart to conversations about workplace accountability, Rob shares how curiosity about people’s lives shaped his work and how leaders can bring that same curiosity to their teams.

What we explore:

• Understanding someone’s perspective. Rob distinguishes cognitive empathy from emotional empathy and explains why perspective-taking is especially useful at work.
• Recognizing what gets in the way. How judgment, stereotypes, assumptions, and distraction can prevent us from hearing what someone is actually saying.
• Asking questions that invite conversation. Why Rob encourages open, exploratory questions and phrases such as “Tell me more about that.”
• Finding common ground. An ice cream exercise demonstrates how people with different preferences can work toward a shared decision.
• Combining empathy and accountability. How leaders can approach performance concerns and difficult departures while preserving someone’s dignity.
• Making empathy part of the organization. Rob’s “empathy ecosystem” connects mission and values, leadership behavior, communication, systems and processes, and relationships with the wider community.
• Keeping human development in view. We discuss the role of relationships, intentional connection in remote teams, and our concerns about relying on AI to replace developmental conversations.

Rob’s Five Steps to Empathy

1. Dismantle judgment: Notice the assumptions and biases shaping your response.
2. Ask good questions: Invite people to explain their experience in their own words.
3. Actively listen: Be present and recognize when distraction gets in the way.
4. Integrate into understanding: Make room for perspectives different from your own.
5. Use solution imagination: Apply what you’ve learned to move the conversation toward a constructive outcome.

Rob explains that these steps are a practice to develop, rather than a rigid sequence. Different situations reveal different barriers.

Episode chapters

00:01 — Welcome and introducing Rob Volpe

02:09 — What consumer research taught Rob about empathy

06:41 — Why “empathy activist”?

12:03 — Cognitive and emotional empathy explained

17:14 — The Five Steps to Empathy

19:42 — The ice cream game: Finding common ground

23:35 — Modeling empathy and establishing team ground rules

27:38 — Difficult feedback, accountability, and dignity

30:23 — Developing people in a workplace shaped by AI

36:05 — Building an organizational empathy ecosystem

39:20 — What gets in the way of connection?

44:16 — How do you want to be remembered as a leader?

46:07 — Rob’s book and where to connect

About our guest

Rob Volpe is an empathy activist, speaker, trainer, and coach who helps people and organizations strengthen connection and understanding. He founded the insights firm Ignite 360.

Connect with Rob and explore his work

• Rob Volpe’s website
• Tell Me More About That — book information and purchasing options
• Rob’s guide to the Five Steps to Empathy
• What Does It Mean to Be Human? — the concluding episode of Rob and Maria Ross’s series on The Empathy Edge

If this conversation brought someone to mind, send them the episode. Follow Collaborative Culture and leave a rating or review to help more people find practical conversations about culture, leadership, and collaboration.

Thanks for Listening!

We’d love to hear from you.

Kristine Gentry, PhD

[email protected]

🌐 www.culturegrove.com

🔗 LinkedIn: Kristine McKenzie Gentry

Monica M. Smith

[email protected]

🌐 www.tradewindscareerconsulting.com

🔗 LinkedIn: Monica Mary Smith

If you enjoyed the show, please: subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who cares about building better teams. 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What if the biggest obstacle to solving a problem isn’t the problem itself but the way we approach it?

In this episode of Collaborative Culture, Kristine and Monica sit down with Jim Sholler, author of Solved in Seven: The Power of Disciplined Problem Solving, to explore a deceptively simple idea: before we rush to fix something, we need to make sure we understand what’s actually wrong.

Drawing on decades of experience leading teams and tackling complex challenges, Jim shares the disciplined problem-solving framework that earned him a reputation as “the fixer.” But this conversation goes well beyond process. It’s about culture: how curiosity, humility, inclusion, and a willingness to challenge assumptions can help teams move from blame and workarounds to learning and lasting solutions.

Because great problem-solving isn’t about having the smartest person in the room. It’s about creating the conditions for the right knowledge to emerge.

In this conversation, Jim walks Kristine and Monica through the thinking behind his framework and explains why effective problem-solving is as much about organizational culture as it is about process.

One of the most powerful shifts? Moving from a culture of trying to “prove what’s wrong” to one committed to “learning what’s wrong.”

We explore:

• Why teams often spend enormous amounts of time solving the wrong problem
• The difference between an observation and a true problem statement
• Why facts should be treated as “proposed facts” until they can actually be verified
• How assumptions and long-held beliefs can quietly derail problem-solving
• Why blame has never solved a problem
• When workarounds are necessary and when they become dangerous
• How bringing different perspectives into the room creates what Jim calls a “coincidence of knowledge”
• Why the person with the answer may not be the person you expected
• How leaders can engage quieter voices and create ownership across a team
• Why finding the root cause doesn’t matter if the organization isn’t willing to fix it
• How disciplined problem-solving can spread from individual teams into the broader organizational culture
• Why this same methodology can be useful far beyond the workplace

Jim also shares several real-world stories where seemingly complicated problems became remarkably simple once teams slowed down, questioned what they thought they knew, and examined the facts together.

The takeaway is one we come back to again and again on Collaborative Culture: culture shapes how work gets done.

When people feel empowered to ask questions, challenge assumptions, contribute what they know, and focus on learning rather than blame, teams don’t just solve problems better. They build an entirely different way of working together.

About Jim Sholler: Jim Sholler spent 27 years at Fidelity Investments in leadership roles across IT, operations, project management, and transformation before developing his disciplined approach to root-cause problem-solving. He is the author of Solved in Seven: The Power of Disciplined Problem Solving and now consults and teaches organizations how to build stronger problem-management cultures.

Connect with Jim

Email: [email protected]

Book: Solved in Seven: The Power of Disciplined Problem Solving

Thanks for Listening!

We’d love to hear from you.

Kristine Gentry, PhD

[email protected]

🌐 www.culturegrove.com

🔗 LinkedIn: Kristine McKenzie Gentry

Monica M. Smith

[email protected]

🌐 www.tradewindscareerconsulting.com

🔗 LinkedIn: Monica Mary Smith

If you enjoyed the show, please: subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who cares about building better teams. 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Collaborative Culture is back for Season 2 with a new theme: Good People Doing Great Things.

In this season premiere, Dr. Kristine Gentry and Monica Smith reconnect after the summer and share what listeners can expect from the podcast’s next chapter. Through a mix of candid co-host conversations and interviews with guests from around the world and around the corner, Season 2 will spotlight the people, practices, and ideas helping create better workplaces.

Kristine and Monica introduce the idea of “culture building blocks”—practical ways people at every level of an organization can strengthen communication, collaboration, trust, inclusion, and problem-solving. Because culture is not built only through sweeping initiatives from the top. It is shaped every day, one interaction, decision, and team practice at a time.

They also preview some of the questions they will explore this season: What makes in-person work genuinely valuable? How is AI changing the way teams learn and collaborate? How can organizations navigate continuous change without losing trust? And what can each of us do to make our corner of the workplace better?

Welcome back to Collaborative Culture and to a season dedicated to good people doing great things.

Dr. Kristine Gentry and Monica Smith kick off Season 2 of Collaborative Culture and introduce the season’s new theme: Good People Doing Great Things.

They share what they have been working on during the podcast break, preview the conversations ahead, and explore why building a healthy workplace culture does not have to begin with a large, top-down transformation. Every person can influence culture by improving the way their team communicates, collaborates, solves problems, and includes different perspectives.

• What “Good People Doing Great Things” means for Season 2
• The new alternating format featuring co-host conversations and guest interviews
• Why everyone—not only executives and managers—can demonstrate cultural leadership
• How small “culture building blocks” can create meaningful workplace change
• Why constant technological, political, and economic change makes culture more important than ever
• The difference between purposeful in-person collaboration and simply commuting to take virtual meetings
• How AI can help people practice and strengthen workplace skills
• A preview of upcoming discussions about AI, return-to-office strategies, culture metrics, problem-solving, inclusion, and global collaboration
• What Kristine and Monica are building and learning in their own work

Culture is not something an organization announces once and then maintains automatically. It is continually built, and sometimes rebuilt, through the everyday behaviors, conversations, tools, and decisions of people throughout the workplace.

You may not control the entire culture, but you can make your corner of it better.

What practices, tools, or approaches have helped your team communicate, collaborate, or solve problems more effectively?

Kristine and Monica would love to hear your examples, particularly stories and perspectives from listeners outside the United States. Your idea could inspire a future episode of Collaborative Culture.

Dr. Kristine Gentry

Founder and CEO, Culture Grove

Website: culturegrove.com

LinkedIn: Dr. Kristine McKenzie Gentry

Instagram: @kristinegentry

Monica M. Smith

Founder and CEO, TradeWinds Career Consulting

Website: tradewindscareerconsulting.com

LinkedIn: Monica M. Smith

New episodes of Collaborative Culture are released every other week. Follow or subscribe, share the show with a colleague, and join us for a new season of conversations about building workplaces where more people can do their best work.

Thanks for Listening!

We’d love to hear from you.

Kristine Gentry, PhD

[email protected]

🌐 www.culturegrove.com

🔗 LinkedIn: Kristine McKenzie Gentry

Monica M. Smith

[email protected]

🌐 www.tradewindscareerconsulting.com

🔗 LinkedIn: Monica Mary Smith

If you enjoyed the show, please: subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who cares about building better teams. 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What does it actually take to build an intentional culture, especially inside a large organization navigating transformation, new technology, shifting customer expectations, and constant change?

In this replay episode of Collaborative Culture, Dr. Kristine Gentry and Monica M. Smith revisit their conversation with longtime financial services executive Ron Thalheimer. Drawing on more than 40 years of leadership experience, including more than two decades at Fidelity Investments, Ron shares how he built highly collaborative, service-focused teams without separating culture from performance.

The conversation explores why culture starts with clear expectations but becomes real through consistent behavior. Ron explains how leaders build trust by staying visible, developing genuine relationships, addressing behavior that contradicts the desired culture, and helping employees understand how their work contributes to a larger goal.

He also shares a powerful example of leading a major service transformation despite internal resistance—and how customer feedback eventually helped turn skeptics into supporters.

This episode is a reminder that intentional culture is not a separate initiative owned by HR. It is built through the decisions leaders make, the behaviors they reward or allow, and the way they help people navigate change together.

As organizations continue navigating AI adoption, hybrid work, restructuring, and ongoing transformation, the ideas in this conversation feel especially relevant.

Leaders can announce a new strategy, introduce new technology, or define a set of values. But none of those things becomes part of the culture until people understand what needs to change and see leaders consistently model and reinforce the behaviors required to get there.

Ron Thalheimer is a financial services executive and transformation leader with more than 40 years of experience across banking, insurance, investment services, operations, and client service.

His career includes leadership roles with Continental Bank, First National Bank of Chicago, and more than two decades at Fidelity Investments. Throughout his career, Ron led large teams, managed complex transformations, worked across international markets, and built service cultures that strengthened both employee and customer relationships.

Leading across cultures and geographies

Drawing on his experience working in London and leading teams across the United States, the United Kingdom, and India, Ron emphasizes the importance of flexibility, curiosity, and awareness.

Global collaboration requires more than expecting others to accommodate US schedules, communication preferences, and workplace norms.

• Culture is built through behavior, not announcements.
• Employees notice what leaders tolerate as much as what they promote.
• Culture cannot be outsourced to HR or assigned to one “culture person.”
• Leaders build trust by knowing employees as people, not simply as resources.
• Organizational transformation requires behavioral change—not only new technology or processes.
• Resistance does not always mean the strategy is wrong; sometimes people need evidence, experience, and credible voices before they are willing to believe in the change.
• A strong culture helps organizations move from reactive problem-solving to proactive partnership.
• Intentional culture and strong business performance are not competing priorities. Culture is part of how performance is achieved.

New episodes return after our summer break, but the culture conversation continues all summer.

If you enjoyed this episode:

• Subscribe to Collaborative Culture
• Leave a review
• Share the episode with a leader or colleague
• Revisit the other conversations in our summer replay series

Thanks for Listening!

We’d love to hear from you.

Kristine Gentry, PhD

[email protected]

🌐 www.culturegrove.com

🔗 LinkedIn: Kristine McKenzie Gentry

Monica M. Smith

[email protected]

🌐 www.tradewindscareerconsulting.com

🔗 LinkedIn: Monica Mary Smith

If you enjoyed the show, please: subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who cares about building better teams. 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode Description

What if the problem with your people data is not that it is wrong, but that it was built for a completely different purpose?

In this replay episode of Collaborative Culture, Dr. Kristine Gentry and Monica M. Smith revisit a powerful conversation with Dr. Nicole Eisdorfer, organizational psychologist and founder of Truer Words. Nicole brings both a research and practitioner lens to one of the biggest challenges facing HR and culture leaders: how to make sense of workplace data that often looks precise but misses the truth.

Together, Kristine, Monica, and Nicole explore why many HR systems were designed to record transactions, not capture meaning. They discuss how performance ratings, engagement surveys, templates, dashboards, and inherited HR practices can create a false sense of clarity while masking what is actually happening inside an organization.

This episode is especially timely for leaders who want to build trust, improve culture, retain talent, and make better decisions in a workplace shaped by rapid change, AI, employee skepticism, and growing demands for more human-centered leadership.

The key message: metrics matter, but only when they are connected to reality. If the data does not tell the truth about people’s experience, it will not help leaders build a healthier culture.

In This Episode, We Talk About

• Why HR data is often built to document activity, not reveal meaning
• How inherited HR systems can quietly distort culture
• Why “beautiful dashboards” do not always tell the truth
• Why acknowledging flawed metrics can actually build trust
• How templates and “best practices” can create values drift
• Why HR needs to step into the human side of business strategy
• How AI may amplify flawed assumptions if leaders are not careful

Key Takeaways

One of Nicole’s most important points is that HR data is not always bad because it is inaccurate. It is often limited because it was built for compliance and transaction tracking, then later repurposed for strategy, culture, and decision-making.

Kristine and Monica also explore how this connects to trust. When employees know a system is flawed, and leaders pretend the data is perfect, cynicism grows. But when leaders acknowledge the limitations of the data and commit to understanding what is really happening, they create more room for honesty.

Why We’re Replaying This Episode Now

We are re-sharing this episode because the conversation about people metrics, AI, trust, and culture has only become more urgent.

Organizations are collecting more data than ever, but more data does not automatically mean better insight. In fact, as AI becomes more embedded in HR, leadership, and decision-making, flawed assumptions can be repeated and scaled even faster.

This episode is a reminder that leaders cannot outsource judgment to dashboards, templates, or AI-generated summaries. They still need context. They still need critical thinking. They still need to listen to employees. And they still need to ask whether the systems and processes they rely on are actually keeping the promises they make.

For HR leaders, executives, culture consultants, and people managers, this conversation offers a practical and thoughtful lens for moving beyond surface-level measurement toward metrics that better reflect trust, alignment, accountability, and lived experience.

Referenced in the Episode

• Nicole Eisdorfer’s “Making HR Data Truer” worksheet

Guest Bio

Nicole Eisdorfer is an organizational psychologist and founder of Truer Words. She helps leaders see what is really driving their culture beneath the surface by blending research, storytelling, and systems thinking. Her work focuses on helping organizations turn good intentions into structures that actually keep their promises.

About Collaborative Culture

New episodes return August 5. Until then, we are revisiting foundational conversations from Season One that continue to feel timely, practical, and relevant for leaders today.

Thanks for Listening!

We’d love to hear from you.

Kristine Gentry, PhD

[email protected]

🌐 www.culturegrove.com

🔗 LinkedIn: Kristine McKenzie Gentry

Monica M. Smith

[email protected]

🌐 www.tradewindscareerconsulting.com

🔗 LinkedIn: Monica Mary Smith

If you enjoyed the show, please: subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who cares about building better teams. 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode Description

AI is still moving fast, and many leaders are still asking the same question: how do we bring AI into the organization without creating fear, confusion, or a culture of replacement?

That is why we are re-sharing this episode of Collaborative Culture (originally Episode 8).

In this conversation, Dr. Kristine Gentry and Monica M. Smith talk about AI adoption as a culture issue, not just a technology decision. They explore how smart leaders can use AI as a moment to build trust, invite innovation, engage employees, and strengthen the organization for long-term growth.

The key message: AI does not have to be a layoff story. It can be a growth story, but only if leaders are intentional about how they introduce it, communicate about it, and involve people in shaping what comes next.

Kristine and Monica discuss why fear-based AI adoption can damage trust, why employees need to be treated as co-creators rather than obstacles, and how leaders can avoid “spreadsheet-style” decision-making that cuts people out of the very innovation they need.

This episode is especially timely for executives, HR leaders, people managers, entrepreneurs, and culture leaders who are thinking about how to use AI well, not just quickly.

Key Takeaways

AI adoption is not just about efficiency. It is about how work changes, how people feel about those changes, and whether employees trust leadership enough to engage with the transformation.

Leaders who want AI to succeed need to do more than announce a new tool or mandate new workflows. They need to explain the purpose, invite participation, recognize existing expertise, and create a culture where people can learn, experiment, and ask honest questions.

The strongest AI strategies are not built around fear. They are built around growth, clarity, trust, and shared ownership.

Why We’re Replaying This Episode Now

We are re-sharing this episode because the AI conversation has only become more urgent.

More companies are experimenting with AI, but the organizations using it well are not just focused on speed or automation. They are asking better questions: How does this align with our values? How will this change the employee experience? What capabilities do we need to build? How do we protect trust while we innovate?

This episode offers a practical, culture-first lens for leaders who want to move forward with AI without losing the human intelligence, creativity, and collaboration that make their organizations strong.

Questions to Consider While Listening

• Is your organization talking about AI as a threat, a tool, or a growth opportunity?
• Have employees been invited into the conversation, or are they simply being told what will change?
• Are leaders clear about how AI connects to the company’s purpose and long-term strategy?
• What fears, assumptions, or unanswered questions might be shaping how people respond?
• How can you recognize and reward the human expertise that makes AI adoption successful?

Referenced in the Episode

• Ranjay Gulati on deep purpose
• Charles O’Reilly on innovation culture (on MIT Sloan Management Review podcast)
• Chevron’s Hess acquisition and the role of culture in performance

About Collaborative Culture

New episodes return August 5. Until then, we are revisiting foundational conversations from Season One that continue to feel timely, practical, and relevant for leaders today.

Subscribe

Follow Collaborative Culture on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. If the episode resonates with you, please leave a review to help more people find the show.

Thanks for Listening!

We’d love to hear from you.

Kristine Gentry, PhD

[email protected]

🌐 www.culturegrove.com

🔗 LinkedIn: Kristine McKenzie Gentry

Monica M. Smith

[email protected]

🌐 www.tradewindscareerconsulting.com

🔗 LinkedIn: Monica Mary Smith

If you enjoyed the show, please: subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who cares about building better teams. 

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Episode Description

As more organizations work across borders, time zones, functions, and cultures, collaboration cannot be treated as something that “just happens.” It has to be intentionally designed.

In this replay episode of Collaborative Culture, Kristine and Monica revisit a conversation that feels just as relevant today: how global teams collaborate, what companies often misunderstand about cultural difference, and why effective cross-cultural work requires more than awareness. It requires curiosity, humility, practice, and a willingness to rethink the assumptions we bring into the room.

Monica shares how she works with leaders and teams navigating global collaboration, scaling organizations, outsourcing relationships, expat transitions, and cross-functional work. The conversation also explores why DEI, when truly embedded into culture and talent practices, is not simply an “add-on” that can be removed when the political winds shift.

At the heart of this episode is a powerful reminder: culture is not a side issue. It shapes how people communicate, interpret deadlines, build trust, manage risk, make decisions, and contribute their best work.

In This Episode, We Talk About

• Why global companies often think about DEI differently than U.S.-only organizations
• The difference between performative DEI and practices that are truly embedded into culture
• How command-and-control leadership can limit collaboration with global partners and suppliers
• Why cross-cultural collaboration has to be managed toward outcomes, not assumptions
• Monica’s three-part approach: mindset, measurability, and practice
• How cohort-based learning helps teams build real-time cultural understanding
• Why leaders need to understand cultural norms without turning them into stereotypes
• The role of curiosity, respect, and cultural humility in global teamwork
• How companies can better support expat leaders and employees working across cultures
• Why mistakes will happen—and why repair is an essential cross-cultural skill

Key Takeaways

One of the strongest ideas in this conversation is that companies cannot unlock the best of global talent through hierarchy alone. When headquarters dictates, controls, or assumes its way of working is the “right” way, it often misses the creativity, insight, and expertise available across the organization.

Monica also emphasizes that cultural learning is not about memorizing every custom in every country. It is about developing the ability to notice difference, ask better questions, adapt behavior, and stay curious instead of defaulting to judgment.

Kristine brings in the anthropological lens of ethnocentrism and cultural relativism, reminding us that we all interpret the world through the norms we were taught. In global and cross-functional teams, that awareness matters. It helps leaders pause before assuming that a behavior means disrespect, disengagement, or lack of commitment.

Why We’re Replaying This Episode Now

This episode is a great listen for anyone working with global teams, cross-functional groups, outsourced partners, or multicultural organizations. It also connects directly to one of the core themes of Collaborative Culture: culture is not separate from operations. It is part of how the work gets done.

As organizations continue navigating political shifts, changing expectations around DEI, hybrid collaboration, global talent, and distributed teams, this conversation offers a practical and thoughtful reminder that collaboration has to be cultivated with intention.

About Collaborative Culture

Collaborative Culture is hosted by Dr. Kristine Gentry, founder of Culture Grove, and Monica M. Smith, CEO of Tradewinds Career Consulting. Together, they explore how culture shapes the way people work, lead, collaborate, and build stronger organizations.

New episodes return August 5. Until then, we’re revisiting foundational conversations from Season One that continue to shape the way we think about culture, leadership, and collaboration.

Thanks for Listening!

We’d love to hear from you.

Kristine Gentry, PhD

[email protected]

🌐 www.culturegrove.com

🔗 LinkedIn: Kristine McKenzie Gentry

Monica M. Smith

[email protected]

🌐 www.tradewindscareerconsulting.com

🔗 LinkedIn: Monica Mary Smith

If you enjoyed the show, please: subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who cares about building better teams. 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.