On this episode of Culture Talks, Lorne Rubis and Dave McCauley take on two urgent topics: extreme executive perks and the growing impact of wildfires on organizations and employees.

Sparked by a Wall Street Journal report on executive compensation, Lorne and Dave dig into the widening gap between C-suite perks (six-figure wellness budgets, personal jets, "just because" bonuses) and frontline employees struggling to cover basic healthcare costs. Both are capitalists - but agree that boards need to wake up to how egregious the spread has become.

The conversation shifts to something hitting close to home: wildfire smoke from the Okanogan and Spokane fires. Lorne and Dave share real examples of how companies should - and shouldn't - respond when disaster strikes employees' families, including a story about a $5,000 no-questions-asked relief fund and a devastating example of a bank forcing an employee to use her vacation days during a flood.

They also break down a surprising data point: Mississippi's leap to the top of U.S. elementary reading and math scores, achieved not by lowering standards but by raising them - a lesson Lorne applies directly to workplace culture.

Topics covered:

00:00 Intro

04:30 The Wall Street Journal report on extreme executive perks

14:00 Where are the boards?

17:00 Wildfire smoke and organizational risk

18:30 The $5,000 no-questions-asked relief fund story

19:30 Data center resilience vs. people resilience

25:30 Mississippi's education turnaround

28:00 Why "culture work" isn't soft — it's accountability

31:30 Pizza review: airline flight cancellations

Culture Talks is a podcast exploring organizational culture and leadership, hosted by Lorne Rubis and Dave McCauley.

🔔 Subscribe for new episodes🌐 More at lornerubis.com

On this episode of Culture Talks, Lorne Rubis and Dave McCauley take their culture deep-dive to an unexpected place: a car wash.

Crew Carwash, family-run since 1946 and staffed by 16-year-olds, holds a Glassdoor score nearly as high as tech unicorn Bending Spoons - proof that great culture isn't reserved for high-flying tech companies.

Dave shares the story of a Sport Clips franchisee who broke from industry norms by investing early in healthcare and retention bonuses for hairstylists, becoming the most profitable Sport Clips franchisee in the country while competitors optimized for how fast they could hire and churn through staff.

The episode's sharpest line comes from Dave: "the balance sheet is louder than the employee sheet,” a warning about how short-term financial pressure causes leaders to lose sight of what actually builds long-term profitability and retention.

Topics covered:

00:00 Intro

04:00 Crew Carwash's Glassdoor score and hiring 16-year-olds

09:30 Do your feet line up with your mouth?

15:30 The Sport Clips franchisee case study

21:00 What gets measured gets managed

23:30 The cruise line and Viking river cruise stories

26:30 Pizza review: rating Crew Car Wash

32:00 "The balance sheet is louder than the employee sheet"

Culture Talks is a podcast exploring organizational culture and leadership, hosted by Lorne Rubis and Dave McCauley.

🔔 Subscribe for new episodes🌐 More at lornerubis.com

On this episode of Culture Talks, Lorne Rubis and Dave McCauley start with a deeply practical question: how do you show up for a difficult conversation when you're not at your best?

Dave shares his technique - slowing his breathing and writing down how he wants the other person to feel afterward.

Lorne connects it back to their "connect before content" principle, applied to yourself before anyone else.

Then they dig into Bending Spoons, an Italian tech company that receives over a million job applications a year and hires around 400 people - a harder acceptance rate than Harvard.

Lorne and Dave break down what makes their hiring model work: top-of-market pay, peer-driven hiring decisions, and a refusal to hire out of desperation just to "plug a hole." They also explore whether onboarding should function more like a rite of passage, with the whole team taking ownership of a new hire's success.

Topics covered:

00:00 Intro and World Cup talk

04:30 Staying composed before difficult conversations

10:00 The psychology of "low and slow" under pressure

13:00 Bending Spoons: 1 million applications, 400 hires

17:00 Peer-based hiring and avoiding the "plug the hole" trap

26:30 Onboarding as a rite of passage

30:30 Why 90-day probation periods don't work

32:00 Pizza review: rating Bending Spoons' hiring model

Culture Talks is a podcast exploring organizational culture and leadership, hosted by Lorne Rubis and Dave McCauley.

🔔 Subscribe for new episodes🌐 More at lornerubis.com

On this episode of Culture Talks, Lorne Rubis and Dave McCauley tackle a question most leaders are afraid to ask: does employee retention actually matter anymore?

They start with a wake-up call about workplace transparency - AI agents can now generate deeply detailed, unfiltered reviews of what it's like to work for a specific leader, going far beyond a simple Glassdoor score. Lorne demos this live with a room of 40 leaders, with results that shocked even him.

From there, they dig into retention itself. With tech giants like Meta averaging under two years of employee tenure, Lorne and Dave debate whether low retention is a red flag or simply a business model some companies have built around. They break down the difference between regretted and unregretted turnover, and why a leader who can't retain anyone past five months has a real problem - no matter how they spin it.

The episode wraps with a story about a corporate jet sent back empty to retrieve a forgotten set of golf clubs, right after a company-wide memo on cost-cutting — a perfect example of why values only mean something when leaders live them.

Topics covered:

00:00 Intro

01:30 Glassdoor scores and organizational transparency

04:00 Using AI agents to generate leadership reviews

09:30 Companies that manage perception instead of fixing problems

16:00 Does retention still matter as a metric?

27:30 Regretted vs. unregretted retention

32:00 The five-month tenure red flag

39:00 The corporate jet and golf clubs story

44:00 Do your feet line up with your mouth?

Culture Talks is a podcast exploring organizational culture and leadership, hosted by Lorne Rubis and Dave McCauley.

🔔 Subscribe for new episodes🌐 More at lornerubis.com

On this episode of Culture Talks, Lorne Rubis and Dave McCauley take on two connected topics every leader needs to hear: continuous transformation, and how to handle layoffs with honesty and respect.

Drawing on recent HBR and McKinsey research, Lorne and Dave explore why transformation is no longer a one-time project but an ongoing practice organizations must build into how they operate — and why delegating it to a "Chief Transformation Officer" is often a trap.

Then the conversation turns personal. Lorne shares the "plan of one" approach he used while leading a 325-person, $25 million workforce reduction as a Chief People Officer, and why organizations need to stop pretending psychological safety means no one ever loses their job.

Dave shares his own experience delivering layoff news directly, and why how you treat departing employees shapes the trust of everyone who stays.

Topics covered:

00:00 Intro

08:30 Transformation as a continuous practice, not a project

17:00 Why "Chief Transformation Officer" roles can backfire

21:00 Cutting organizational friction and decision-making bottlenecks

27:30 The honesty leaders owe employees about job security

32:00 The "plan of one" approach to layoffs

40:00 Why HR should never deliver layoff news alone

45:30 Two red cards for leaders

Culture Talks is a podcast exploring organizational culture and leadership, hosted by Lorne Rubis and Dave McCauley.🔔 Subscribe for new episodes🌐 More at lornerubis.com

On this episode of Culture Talks, Lorne Rubis and Dave McCauley dig into two of the most debated topics in leadership today.

First: Adam Grant's New York Times research on return-to-office mandates, and why the data suggests ego - not productivity - is often the real driver behind "everyone back in the office" policies. Lorne shares how he built a trust-based, flexible work policy at a 5,000-person bank in 2013, and why it's still paying off today.

Then: the Brilliant Jerk. Lorne and Dave share real stories of toxic high performers - a sales rep forging signatures, an abusive account manager, an F1 team principal, and a lesson from the San Antonio Spurs' scouting reports - to make the case that no organization can afford to keep talent that comes at the cost of culture.

Topics covered:00:00 Intro and 4th of July talk03:00 Adam Grant's NYT article on RTO and narcissism09:00 Building a trust-based work policy17:00 The "collaboration" myth of forced office days30:00 The Brilliant Jerk: why talent isn't worth toxicity37:00 The "recommend to a friend" leadership score42:00 Closing thoughts

Culture Talks is a podcast exploring organizational culture and leadership, hosted by Lorne Rubis and Dave McCauley.

In this insightful episode of Culture Talks, Janice Taylor, a rising expert in emotional wellness and psychology, discusses the critical importance of emotional fitness in personal and organizational success. She explores the differences between mental health and emotional wellness, the impact of emotional injuries, and practical frameworks for leaders to foster emotionally healthy workplaces.

Takeaways: 

• Difference between mental health and emotional wellness

• The emotional system as the foundation of human behavior

• Impact of emotional injuries from childhood

• Frameworks for building emotional fitness in organizations

• The role of leaders in fostering emotional health

In this episode of Culture Talks, Lorne Rubis and Dr. Laura Hambley Lovett discuss the challenges of toxic leadership in the workplace and the insights from Laura's upcoming book, I Wish I'd Quit Sooner.

They explore the impact of toxic bosses on employee well-being, the importance of understanding different leadership traits, strategies, and the need for organizations to create a safe and supportive culture.

The discussion also touches on the balance between compassion and business decisions, and the future of workplace culture.

In this conversation, Kimberly Vaughn, VP of Claims at Amerisure Insurance,

discusses the evolving landscape of leadership, emphasizing the importance of employee

engagement, psychological safety, and the balance between caring for people and achieving

business results. She shares insights on how to address negative friction in the workplace, the

role of AI in enhancing workflows, and the significance of recognition in fostering a positive work

environment. Vaughn also highlights the qualities she looks for in emerging leaders and the

lessons learned from her experiences in swimming and leadership.

What does it truly take to change an organization for the better?

In the latest episode of Culture Talks, Lorne Rubis sits down with Craig Hampson, Chief Business Enablement Officer at BURNCO, for a no-holds-barred conversation about the realities of organizational change.

We dive deep into the critical role of leadership in this process and uncover why so many well-intentioned change efforts fail. 

In this episode, we explore:

• The high cost of incongruency: What happens when you declare a new vision but don't follow through.

• Why toxic leaders often persist and the damage they cause to culture and progress.

• The non-negotiable link between clarity of vision and genuine commitment from the top down.

• How to ensure your leadership declarations are backed by actionable steps and real cultural investment.

This is a must-listen for any executive, leader, or individual who is genuinely committed to their teams and the health of their organization.

Ready to commit to being better? Listen/watch the full conversation.