The Culture Code

The CPO of Aperian, Addie Johnsen talks about what it's like to be CPO at a 65-employee organization. We discuss: 

Enjoy! ☕️ 🎧 

I break down my problem with the Kirkpatrick model and what you should do about it! 

If L&D wants to evolve from "order-taking" into a strategic entity, a significant mindset and behavior shift is required.

In comes Dr. Keith Keating, author of The Trusted Learning Advisor and CLO at BDO Canada.

He covers: 1. The most common stumbling block L&D professionals run into as they adopt a strategic mindset. 2. How to leap over this stumbling block. 3. The critical traits of a learning advisor.4. What to do when you face resistance from stakeholders.  

Hope you enjoy 🤓 

In this interview, CPO of Consensus Cloud Solutions, Lynn Johnson, explains how she scales and sustains company culture to 600 hybrid and remote employees. 

A few highlights include: 

1. How she sustains culture with "an iron fist but a velvet glove." 

2. How despite being a 600-employee company, she scales executive coaching to all of her first-line leaders. 

3. Lynn's favorite books and advice for CPOs

Enjoy! ☕️ 🛋️ 🎧 

In this episode, we sit down with Heather Laychak, the CPO at The Aerospace Corporation. She covers everything from her best-in-class approach to aspiring leadership programs to an industry-shifting diversity initiative and her top three book recommendations.

Key topics include:

Enjoy!

*CORRECTION: One of the goals of the Space Workforce 2030 pledge discussed in this episode was inaccurately presented. To learn more about the initiative, visit http://swf2030.org.

Five years ago, I wrote a check for $1 million to launch an AI-powered coach using IBM Watson.

We then created the world’s first executive coach bot (long before Chat GPT).

And it DID NOT work.

Here’s why:

Even though the leaders liked the tool…

The BUYERS—CPOs, CHROs, CLOs—DID NOT.

The issue was this: Occasionally the bot would make a mistake. And this put the Buyers at risk.

Sure, the mistakes were small, uncommon, and not costly. But, any risk when it came to a coach was too much risk.

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So here’s what we realized: People didn’t want a Bot coach. They wanted affordable, text-based access to a coach.

And here’s what we did to meet that need: We put together a staff of on-call, ICF-certified coaches to interact with leaders by text.

Like a call center of expert coaches.

Learners can message an expert at the exact moment they run into a challenge or a question.

That was the balance between scalability and impact that people wanted.

Abbie Buck, CPO of Collective Health, breaks down her scrappy approach to leadership dev. This one's full of creative and stealable ideas! 

Key Topics Covered:

Tune in for an inspiring session full of actionable advice. 🔉

In this conversation with Courtney Panik, CPO of Symphony, we cover:

She covers all of the above and much more! 

Enjoy. 

This episode explores the innovative way the CHRO of SugarCRM reduced employee turnover from 23% to 9% after joining the company.

In addition to reducing turnover, CHRO Shana Sweeney shares: 

Tune in for a deep dive into the leadership strategies that not only retain talent but also empower them to thrive within a rapidly growing company.

LEADx and Gallup research on employee experience shows that “your manager cares” is now a top five driver of employee engagement.

One great example of “caring” in action is at One Medical, where “manager care” is a top-scoring item on their engagement survey year over year. To learn more, I had the chance to meet with CPO Christine Morehead. 

Here are three highlights from our conversation. 

1. Christine sees aspiring leader development as key to her success. 

“All too often, somebody raises their hand or they get tapped on the shoulder to lead people, and then they begin training once they’re already managers. We went upstream to proactively train our emerging leaders." 

2. Employees fittingly refer to company values as "strands of One Medical's DNA" 

The five strands are: 1) human-centered, 2) team-based, 3) intellectually curious, 4) exercises unbounded thinking, and 5) driven to excel. 

3. Her research-based approach to sustaining culture

Based on research that Christine collected at a previous company, she fosters culture by delivering a program at one of the most statistically critical moments in an employee’s tenure: the 90-day mark. 

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As I always say, Christine covered all of the above and much more in the full interview. 

I know I've had a few MUST LISTEN episodes recently, but once again, this one has to make that list. The 90-day trick and her approach to emerging leaders are what seal the deal. 

Enjoy! 

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