The Organizational Health Advantage

Are you a leader of your function, or a leader of the organization who happens to run a function? In this episode, Keith and James unpack the “Team Number One” mindset, a concept introduced by Pat Lencioni in The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, and why it’s one of the most important shifts an executive can make. They explore how prioritizing your function over the leadership team can create silos, competing agendas, and an “us versus them” mentality that compounds throughout an organization. Through real client stories, Keith and James discuss what changes when executives take collective ownership of the company’s biggest challenges, why alignment at the top matters at every level, and how leaders can balance functional responsibility with an organization-first mindset. If you want to reduce internal politics, strengthen cross-functional collaboration, and build a truly cohesive leadership team, it starts with deciding which team is your Team Number One.

When John Damon became CEO of Canopy Children’s Solutions, he didn’t announce a new organizational health initiative. Instead, he spent the first year practicing the disciplines exclusively with his executive team, then deliberately worked them through successive levels of leadership before ever introducing organizational health to the broader organization.

In this episode, John joins Keith Hadley and Brad Haynes to reflect on the journey that followed and the responsibility of leading an organization serving some of Mississippi’s most vulnerable children and families. They discuss why lasting transformation requires both patience and moments of decisive change, how trust, healthy conflict, and accountability became embedded in Canopy’s culture, and why leadership development must begin with the leader doing their own work. John also shares his conviction in the power of hope—the belief that the future can be wider than the past, and that we have the ability to make it so—and the responsibility leaders have to sustain it through clear goals, multiple pathways forward, and shared willpower.

The ability to consistently develop great leaders can become one of the most powerful competitive advantages an organization has. In this episode, Keith and James explore why leadership development shouldn’t exist separately from organizational health, but should instead reinforce the clarity, culture, and behaviors an organization has already established. They discuss how the four disciplines can become a practical framework for developing leaders at every level—from building cohesive teams and translating organizational clarity to setting expectations, giving feedback, running better meetings, and having difficult conversations. Rather than adding another program to leaders’ plates, they explain how development can happen through the work leaders are already doing, including one-on-ones, performance conversations, hiring, coaching, and cascading communication. Whether you’re building a leadership development program from scratch or already have a robust L&D function, the goal is the same: develop leaders in a way that strengthens your culture, scales organizational health, and equips your people to develop the leaders beneath them.

In this episode, we're joined again by former Principal Consultant and bestselling author Jim Brown to discuss the soon to be released 20th Anniversary Edition of The Imperfect Board Member. We explore the unique and distinctive roles of board members and executives; the kind of dynamics that define healthy boards and some common pitfalls and problems that can lead to dysfunction and struggle. This episode is for CEOs, Executives, and Board Members alike who all share a common mandate to do what leads to company success. See S6E11 for our first episode with Jim Brown, on his new book The Imperfect CEO.

Organizational transformation rarely succeeds through speed alone. It requires leaders patient enough to create the conditions for people to move forward together. In this episode, Fernando Cuccioli, President of DeLaval Americas, joins Keith Hadley and James Felton to reflect on his six-year commitment to organizational health and the leadership philosophy that shaped it. From building an executive team around the principles of humble, hungry, smart to using William Bridges' Transition Model to guide a major organizational restructure, Fernando shares how patience, transparency, and trust enabled his team to navigate significant change without sacrificing cohesion. He also reflects on the personal leadership shifts that made that transformation possible—from embracing feedback as a gift to learning the power of delegation, vulnerability, and going last. Along the way, Fernando explains how restructuring became an opportunity to better understand his people's ambitions, cultivate a shared leadership language, and build an organization capable of sustaining change long after the reorganization was complete.

Clear expectations and consistent feedback are foundational to healthy leadership—but they're also some of the most overlooked management practices. In this "Simple Ideas, Big Impact" episode, Keith and James revisit the timeless lessons of Ken Blanchard's The One Minute Manager, exploring why leaders often assume expectations are understood without ever communicating them. They discuss the power of setting clear expectations, affirming success, coaching with clarity, and why even CEOs can miss the mark when it comes to feedback. If you want to build stronger teams and eliminate unnecessary frustration, this simple leadership habit can make all the difference.

In this episode, James is joined by longtime Table Group Principal Consultant Rick Packer and former Principal Consultant and bestselling author Jim Brown to discuss Jim’s new book, The Imperfect CEO. Together, they explore why great CEOs don’t need to have all the answers, but they do need the humility to go first, admit limitations, build trust, and create the conditions for true collaboration.

The conversation centers on Jim’s four peaks of organizational health: collaborative culture, leadership accountability, strategic momentum, and talent magnetism—and how each one depends on a leader’s willingness to embrace imperfection, model vulnerability, and guard the health of the organization.

In this episode, Keith and James explore one of the most important mindset shifts leaders can make: to see yourself as a victim of circumstances or as an agent of change.

The conversation centers on three simple but powerful questions: What is our current reality? What needs to change? And what is my responsibility in making that happen?

What does “Working Genius” look like at the leadership level? In this episode, Keith and James explore which types of work leaders must personally own—and which they can delegate.

They make the case that leaders don’t need to excel at all six Working Genius areas, but they must take responsibility for three critical roles: creating space for wonder, driving discernment to clear decisions, and ensuring teams stay focused through galvanizing.

Along the way, they unpack common leadership pitfalls—like skipping strategic thinking, overvaluing personal ideas, or failing to maintain momentum after decisions are made—and offer practical ways to lead more intentionally based on your strengths.

A sharp, thought-provoking conversation for leaders looking to better understand their role in driving clarity, focus, and execution.

Rapid growth and acquisitions don’t strengthen organizations on their own—alignment does. In this episode, George Abatjoglou of EMSMC shares how the company transformed from a collection of regional EMS service providers into a unified national organization, and how organizational health became the foundation for navigating change, building trust, and creating lasting alignment across teams. From defining a purpose employees could genuinely connect to—“helping first responders answer the call”—to integrating teams across multiple acquisitions and countries, this conversation explores what it really takes to scale culture intentionally.

George also dives into the practical side of embedding organizational health into daily operations through leadership cascades, recognition systems, storytelling, and values-driven communication that moved beyond posters and mission statements. A must-listen for leaders managing growth, acquisitions, remote teams, or culture transformation while trying to keep people connected to meaningful work.