Growth Hacking Culture

Most senior leaders do not know they are the bottleneck. They think they are the standard.

They are in every key decision, every escalation, every thread that matters. And they have quietly trained their teams to wait for them. It does not feel like a problem. It feels like leadership.

Brad Sugars is the founder of ActionCoach, the world's largest business coaching firm operating in 1,000+ offices across 80 countries, and author of 18 books on business, leadership, and organizational performance. For 30 years he has worked with executives across 80 countries who built high-performing reputations and high-dependency teams at the same time. He also had to confront this in himself: at 26, he built an organization that could run without him, then spent two years sabotaging it because he was not emotionally ready to step back.

In this episode, Ivan and Brad map the full leadership progression from indispensable technician to organizational coach. They get into the management infrastructure most companies quietly dismantled in the 2000s, the psychology of leaders who need to be needed, and what it actually takes to build a team that performs without you in the room.

In this episode:

- Why the behaviors that made you a high performer become the exact ceiling on your organization's growth, and how to recognize which leadership stage you are actually operating from

This one is for the senior leader who has built a capable team on paper but cannot seem to step back without everything slowing down.

🔗 Connect with Brad Sugars

Growth Hacking Culture is a top 5% global podcast exploring the neuroscience, psychology, and behavioral science behind leadership and workplace culture. Hosted by Ivan Palomino.

Most organizations know something is wrong long before they run a survey. The sense that good people are pulling back, that processes are harder than they need to be, that the same conversations keep happening in the same conference rooms without anything changing. The survey confirms it. And then, usually, not much else happens.

The problem is not the data. The problem is that most organizational listening tools were built to measure sentiment, not to trace its origins. They tell you where it hurts. They have no mechanism for telling you why.

Dustin Snyder spent fifteen years in labor relations and several more as the president of a manufacturing company before he concluded that the standard diagnostic toolkit was missing something fundamental. His workforce was not performing the way he needed it to. He tried the conventional fixes. They did not hold. What he eventually discovered, and what he has since spent years proving across nearly every industry in the United States, is that employee behavior is not a character issue. It is a design issue.

People respond rationally to the conditions around them. If those conditions make the wrong behavior the easiest path, that is the behavior you will get, consistently, regardless of who you hire.

In this conversation, Dustin and Ivan explore what it actually looks like to move from measuring employee feelings to diagnosing the environmental forces that generate them, why that shift is harder than it sounds, and what changes when a leadership team finally sees the wiring diagram behind their engagement score.

In this episode:

This one is for the HR leader, CHRO, or senior executive who has run the survey, built the action plan, and watched the same number come back twelve months later, and who suspects the loop will not break until the questions themselves change.

Website: https://wayforward.work/

Book: Sink or Swim https://a.co/d/0asu3lm5

LinkedIn: Dustin Snyder https://www.linkedin.com/in/snyderdustin/ 

Growth Hacking Culture is a top 5% global podcast exploring the neuroscience, psychology, and behavioral science behind leadership and workplace culture. Hosted by Ivan Palomino 

Your organization has a wellbeing program. Maybe a meditation app, some mental health days, a resilience workshop or a Friday yoga session nobody attends because everyone is still in back-to-back meetings.

And your people are still burning out.

Here's the question most leaders never ask: what if the problem was never your people? What if it was always the work itself, how it's structured, how it's led, how it distributes autonomy, meaning, and control? What if every wellbeing program you've ever launched was treating symptoms while the system kept producing the damage?

Dr. Kat Page has spent two decades studying exactly this. She's an organizational psychologist, leadership partner at Pymany, and the author of Good Work: Transform Your Work from the Inside Out. In this episode, Kat and host Ivan Palomino challenge the entire premise of corporate wellbeing — and make the case for something more radical: fixing the design of work itself.

What you'll learn in this episode:

The evidence has been building for over a hundred years in the work design literature, but it stays locked inside academia. The core finding: a poorly designed job is worse for your mental health than unemployment. When high demands combine with a lack of control, what researchers call job strain, you more than double the risk of depression. This isn't a motivation problem or a resilience problem. It's a design problem.

Kat unpacks why the resilience myth is so persistent and why telling people to be stronger is, in her words, almost offensive to your best people. She introduces the concept of moral injury at work: the specific damage done when people can't fulfill their purpose because of broken internal systems. This isn't about long hours. It's about being unable to actually help the people you're there to help.

The conversation also goes deep on what a "good work" leader actually does differently — not in theory, but behavior by behavior. What questions they ask, what they stop adding to the system, how they protect focus and recovery time, and why removing friction matters more than any motivation program.

Ivan brings his own story — 20 years of corporate habits that followed him into entrepreneurship, the fear underneath the perfect PowerPoint, and the slow realization that we often collude with the systems we're trying to fight.

Key topics covered:

— Why a poorly designed job is worse for mental health than being unemployed

— The resilience myth: what your best people are actually being resilient to

— Moral injury at work and why it burns people out without long hours

— Is the corporate wellness industry giving organizations permission to avoid real change?

— The 4-level maturity model: why you can't skip straight to fixing the system

— What if performance was measured by energy, not hours?

— The Microsoft data: people interrupted every 2 minutes and what it really costs

— What a "good work" leader actually does, day by day

— The corporate detox: how to unlearn 20 years of broken habits

— Why we are often colluding with the system we're trying to fight

About Dr. Kat Page: Dr. Kat Page is an organizational psychologist and leadership partner at Bymany. She has worked with leaders across industries — from healthcare systems in Melbourne to global organizations in Sydney — helping them build workplaces that are genuinely good for people. She is the author of Good Work: Transform Your Work from the Inside Out, available on Amazon and major retailers.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-kat-page-2366514/ 

Dr. Kat Page Instagram & Substack

Website: drkatpage.com | bymany.com.au

About Growth Hacking Culture: The Growth Hacking Culture Podcast explores the human side of high performance — the mindset, habits, and systems behind founders and leaders who build at the highest level without burning out. Hosted by Ivan Palomino.

📘 Ivan Palomino's new book (French version) is now available: Périmé?: La science de rester indispensable quand le marché préfère le neuf 

Burnout isn't a motivation problem. It's not a willpower problem. And if you're one of the smartest people in the room — it might be happening to you precisely because of how good you are.

Executive coach Frankie Berkoben has spent years inside Google, Airbnb, and the most demanding startup environments in Silicon Valley. She works with engineers, founders, and product leaders who are genuinely brilliant — and burning out faster than anyone around them. In this episode of the Growth Hacking Culture Podcast, Frankie and host Ivan Palomino unpack the hidden loop that traps high performers: the shame cycle that shuts down executive function, destroys focus, and makes everything harder the more you try to fix it.

This isn't a conversation about meditation apps or morning routines. It's about understanding why your brain works the way it does — and designing your life around that reality instead of fighting it.

What you'll learn:

The gap between your potential and your output doesn't mean something is wrong with you. It means there's a mismatch between your responsibilities and your capacity — and shame is making it worse. When high-potential people feel that gap, shame kicks in. And shame doesn't push you to perform better: it suppresses executive function, the exact cognitive system you need for planning, focus, follow-through, and emotional regulation. The harder you push, the more capacity you lose.

Frankie introduces her framework of 7 types of bandwidth — creative, emotional, mental, physical, sensory, social, and values — and explains how to stop running on empty by going where your energy actually is, not where you think it should be. She also breaks down why nonlinear thinkers (roughly 25% of the workforce) are disproportionately at risk, and why interest-based motivation — often dismissed as laziness — is neurological, not a character flaw.

Ivan brings his own experience as a late-stage founder who hit burnout twice, once in corporate and once raising capital, and the conversation goes deep on what actually changes when you stop trying to fit a broken system and start designing for how you're wired.

Key topics covered:

— Is overwhelm the real problem, or a symptom of something deeper? — The capacity-responsibility gap and why it compounds over time — How shame physically suppresses executive function (the neuroscience) — Hustle culture, Elon Musk, and who's really picking up the slack

— Why peak performance is statistically impossible to maintain — and why expecting it makes things worse

— Tony Hsieh, intrinsic motivation, and the danger of building without a personal "why"

— The 7 types of bandwidth and how to use them daily

— Three things you can do when a situation feels like a complete mismatch

— Why design thinking applied to yourself is more powerful than any productivity system

— What to do TODAY if you're sitting at your desk feeling overwhelmed and stuck

About Frankie Berkoben: Frankie Berkoben is a San Francisco-based executive coach specializing in gifted, ADHD, and nonlinear-thinking professionals in tech. She coaches engineers, product leaders, and founders at companies including Google and Airbnb, helping them close the gap between potential and sustainable high performance. She is known for combining design thinking with deep self-knowledge to help clients build systems that work for their actual brain — not an idealized version of it.

Connect with Frankie:

About Growth Hacking Culture: The Growth Hacking Culture Podcast explores the human side of high performance — the mindset, habits, and systems behind founders and leaders who build at the highest level without destroying themselves in the process.

The GHC Podcast has been selected by FeedSpot as one of the Top 100 Thought-Provoking Podcasts https://podcast.feedspot.com/thought_provoking_podcasts/?feed_id=8181374&_src=f2_featured_email#h8181374

Hosted by Ivan Palomino.

Most HR leaders never make it to Chief People Officer — and those who do often struggle to create real impact once they get there. The difference isn't technical expertise. It's mindset, habits, and knowing exactly which career moves accelerate your path to the top.

In this episode of Growth Hacking Culture, Ivan Palomino sits down with Tom Emery, founder of Hex and author of People People: Reach Your Potential as a Chief People Officer. Tom spent over 20 years in HR leadership across financial services and wealth management before building a coaching practice dedicated to helping HR leaders and Chief People Officers lead with genuine impact.

Whether you're an HR business partner aiming for the C-suite, a first-time CPO finding your footing, or a seasoned CHRO looking to sharpen your edge — this conversation is packed with honest, practical insight you won't find in a textbook.

In this episode, you'll learn:

About Tom Emery

Tom Emery is the founder of Hex, an executive coaching and leadership development consultancy, and the author of People People, a practical guide for current and aspiring Chief People Officers. With over two decades in HR leadership — including as CPO at a City of London wealth management firm — Tom now works with HR leaders and executive teams to build the mindset and skills that drive real organizational change.

🔗 Free copy of People People (UK only): https://www.hex-development.com/book-request/

🔗 Connect with Tom on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-emery-b8809818/

📘 Buy People People on Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/People-Reach-potential-Chief-Officer/dp/1788607414

About Growth Hacking Culture

Growth Hacking Culture is the podcast for HR leaders, people professionals, and executives who believe culture is the ultimate competitive advantage. Every episode brings you honest conversations with practitioners and thinkers who are changing how organizations treat their people — and what that means for business results.

🔔 Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and never miss an episode.

📘 Ivan Palomino's new book (French version) is now available: Périmé?: La science de rester indispensable quand le marché préfère le neuf

→  https://www.ivanpalomino.net/perime-livre-ivan-palomino

AI use in HR climbed to 43% in 2026, yet most HR leaders still spend the majority of their day on spreadsheets, manual reconciliations, and transactional work that adds zero strategic value. In this episode of the Growth Hacking Culture Podcast, John Sansoucie, CEO of Cognet, shares a practical roadmap for HR leaders who want to implement AI in HR, eliminate admin overload, and finally operate as a strategic function inside their organization.

If you are searching for real HR technology strategy advice that goes beyond vendor demos and buzzwords, this conversation delivers exactly that. John has spent years helping small and mid-market organizations build AI-powered HR functions that reduce costs, improve hiring quality, and free up time for culture and people development.

What you will learn in this episode:

Why HR is lagging behind finance and other functions in AI adoption in 2026 and what to do about it. How to use AI automation tools to eliminate transactional HR tasks like benefits reconciliation, payroll checks, and compliance tracking. What predictive hiring with AI actually looks like and how to use it to reduce costly unwanted turnover. The biggest risks of implementing AI in HR including data security, overpromising vendors, and failed rollouts. How to evaluate AI tools for HR professionals without technical expertise. Practical first steps for HR leaders with no background in technology who want to start today.

John Sansoucie is the CEO of Cognet, an HR outsourcing and AI solutions company helping organizations turn AI into measurable business results. He brings 35 years of experience across HR outsourcing, finance, and operations.

🔗 Connect with John: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-sansoucie-033b20/

🌐 Cognet: https://www.cognethro.com/ 

Subscribe to the Growth Hacking Culture Podcast for weekly conversations on AI in the workplace, HR leadership, and the future of work.

#AIinHR #HRAutomation #HRLeadership #HRTechnology #FutureOfWork #HumanResourcesStrategy #AItools #HRtech #PeopleAnalytics #HRDigitalTransformation

The job description for HR leader just changed. Again.

Not the version that added culture after COVID. Not the version that added AI literacy after ChatGPT. The version that nobody has written yet — the one where you are responsible for a workforce that is part human, part agent, and entirely your problem to lead effectively.

Most HR leaders are not ready for this. Not because they lack intelligence or intention. Because the function has spent decades being handed other people's problems and called a support function for it. And you cannot build the commercial acumen, the technical fluency, and the strategic credibility required to lead in a human-machine era if you are still running nine-month performance review cycles and buying SAP modules to solve problems that didn't need a SAP module.

Tami Rosen has led HR at Apple, Goldman Sachs, Atlassian, Luminar Technologies and Pagaya. She is writing a book called Superhuman Companies. Her argument is not gentle: people strategy is business strategy. And the organizations — and the HR leaders — who haven't internalized that are already behind.

In this conversation with Ivan Palomino, Tami gets direct about what actually separates strategic HR from administrative HR, why the apprenticeship model is the only thing that genuinely works for AI skill development, how the Continuous Learning Cycle replaced performance reviews at Pagaya and got 100% employee participation, and what it means to lead a blended workforce before the industry has figured out the playbook.

In this episode:

This one is for the HR leader who knows the function needs to change and wants to understand exactly what that change looks like in practice — from someone who has already done it at some of the world's most demanding companies.

Connect with Tami Rosen:

📘 Ivan Palomino's new book (French version) is now available: Périmé?: La science de rester indispensable quand le marché préfère le neuf

→ https://amzn.eu/d/08VSK1OA 

Growth Hacking Culture is a top 5% global podcast hosted by Ivan Palomino, exploring the neuroscience, psychology, and behavioral science behind leadership and workplace performance.

Most HR leaders already know the survey isn't working.

They know because they've seen the same deck three years in a row. They know because the workshops got scheduled and nothing changed. They know because the employees who participated last year are participating again this year with slightly less enthusiasm and exactly the same frustrations.

And yet the survey gets launched again. Because it's what you do. Because the contract renews. Because nobody has been given a credible alternative.

Omar Shbaro has spent years building that alternative. As CTO of VAI Solutions and creator of CultureSim, he starts from a premise that most of the industry quietly avoids: measuring culture and changing culture are two completely different jobs. And until organizations treat them that way, the cycle doesn't break.

In this conversation with Ivan Palomino, Omar breaks down why traditional surveys produce culture noise instead of readable signals, how AI can finally do what no consultant or dashboard has managed to do — listen to what people actually say and translate it into specific action at three different levels of the organization — and why the most powerful shift an HR leader can make right now has nothing to do with buying better data.

In this episode:

This one is for the HR leader who has sat in enough culture debriefs to know something is broken — and is ready to hear what actually works instead.

Connect with Omar Shbaro: LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/omarshbaro 

📘 Ivan Palomino is launching his new book in french: Expired? The Science of Staying Indispensable in a World Obsessed with New → https://www.ivanpalomino.net/perime-livre-ivan-palomino

Growth Hacking Culture is a top 5% global podcast hosted by Ivan Palomino, exploring the neuroscience, psychology, and behavioral science behind leadership and workplace performance.

Most organizations lose their most experienced people without ever understanding why.

Not through dramatic exits or public conflicts. Through a quiet, cumulative process of being overlooked, underinvested in, and gradually made to feel that what they bring no longer fits. And by the time anyone notices, the knowledge, judgment, and institutional memory they carried has walked out the door with them.

Lucy Standing has spent years studying exactly this. As founder of Brave Starts — one of the UK's leading communities for over-50 professionals navigating career transitions — and author of The Age Against the Machine, she makes a case that most organizations aren't ready to hear: ageism isn't a collection of individual biases. It's a structural system. And until we name the machine, we can't dismantle it.

In this conversation with Ivan Palomino, Lucy breaks down the forces driving experienced professionals out of the workforce — from retirement policies designed for a world that no longer exists, to recruitment processes that structurally filter out anyone with grey hair — and what individuals and organizations can actually do about it.

What this episode covers:

This episode is for the experienced professional who knows they still have their best work ahead of them. And for the HR leader or executive who suspects their organization is losing more than it realizes.

Connect with Lucy Standing: bravestarts.com

Book: The Age Against the Machine 

📘 Ivan Palomino is launching his new book (FRENCH edition): Périmé? La science de rester indispensable quand le marché préfère le neuf

→ https://www.ivanpalomino.net/perime-livre-ivan-palomino

Most organizations say they have a safe to fail culture.

Then someone actually fails. And you find out very quickly whether they meant it.

Megan Petrini spent years at Zappos — one of the boldest cultural experiments in corporate history — watching the difference between an organization that genuinely treats failure as data and one that just puts it on the values poster. As a certified professional in talent development, a trust at work practitioner, and author of Manage to Fail, she has spent 16 years studying the habits that quietly destroy team trust and the conditions that actually rebuild it.

The gap between those two things is where most organizations live permanently. Where new hires lose confidence before they've found their footing. Where unclear expectations create invisible failure traps. Where managers move meetings, disappear under pressure, and wonder why their team stopped coming to them.

In this conversation with Ivan Palomino, Megan gets direct about what Zappos did differently — including a million-dollar pricing mistake that became a masterclass in what real psychological safety looks like under pressure — and what it would actually cost most organizations to mean what they say about failure.

In this episode:

This one is for the HR leader, the L&D practitioner, and the manager who genuinely wants to build a team where failure makes people better — not smaller.

Connect with Megan Petrini: managetofail.com | [email protected] | Book: Manage to Fail — available now

📘 Ivan Palomino is launching his new book: Expired? The Science of Staying Indispensable in a World Obsessed with New 

Growth Hacking Culture is a top 5% global podcast hosted by Ivan Palomino, exploring the human side of leadership and workplace performance.