TRAITS podcast: Building Higher Performing Organizations

In this third conversation with Dave Bulloch, Mark and Dave focus on the challenges that show up when scaling your business into medium to large territory. Dave outlines three consistent patterns he sees in businesses approaching and surpassing $100 million in revenue, and explains why getting these wrong at this stage is far more costly than most leaders realize.

Strategic HR for Growing Businesses: Inside the System Jeff Calibaba Built to Fix What Most Companies Get Wrong

Tune in to our latest episode as Jeff Calibaba returns for Part 2, this time pulling back the curtain on Game Plan HR — the company and operating system he built after seeing the same gap in nearly every organization he worked with. Most companies treat HR as an administrative function buried under finance. Jeff built a business around the idea that strategic HR for growing businesses is one of the most important investments an executive team can make.

The 8-Step HROS System

Jeff walks through the HR Operating System in detail. It starts with a free two-hour vision session with the executive team, runs through a 27-discipline HR opportunity analysis, and builds into a full strategic plan executed with quarterly check-ins over a full year. The average company entering the process scores between 25 and 40 percent on the HR scorecard. By year two, that number is measurably higher. The system is designed to work for companies from 10 employees to 2,000.

Build the Community First, Sell Second

Jeff also shares two programs he built for HR professionals themselves: the HR Connection Network, a free bi-weekly gathering of 450 HR professionals, and the HR Velocity program for senior strategic HR leaders. His philosophy is consistent across everything he does: educate first, coach second, and eventually the right clients will come to you.

In Part 2 of his series, Jeff Calibaba goes deep on Game Plan HR — the company he built after spotting the same gap across every organization he worked with. Most companies treat HR as administrative overhead. Jeff built an 8-step operating system to change that, combining a free vision session, a 27-discipline HR audit, a full strategic plan, and quarterly execution support into a one-year subscription program. This episode covers the full system, the professionals behind it, and the two community programs Jeff created to help HR professionals at every level.

Jeff Calibaba is a serial entrepreneur, CEO coach, and founder of Game Plan HR — a company built to transform how growing businesses approach people and culture strategy. After careers in paramedicine, AED distribution, and traffic sign leadership, Jeff founded Game Plan HR to fill the gap he kept seeing: companies treating HR as an afterthought while losing tens of thousands of dollars per turnover event. He has built a team of 32 HR Catalysts across Canada, a 450-member HR professional community, and an 8-step operating system that measurably improves HR maturity year over year. Jeff also coaches CEOs through Vistage peer groups.

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Founder Mistakes That Slow Business Growth: Dave Bulloch on the 3 Behaviors Every Owner Must Change

Tune in to our latest episode as Dave Bulloch returns for Part 2 of his business life cycle series, this time focused on what happens after a business starts to grow. While Episode 1 covered what founders need to get right before launching, this conversation goes deeper into the behavioral patterns that quietly stall momentum once the business is already moving.

The 3 Founder Mistakes Dave Names Directly

Dave identifies three specific behaviors that come up in nearly every growing business he works with. First, founders become bottlenecks, approving every invoice, controlling every decision, and doing low-value work that keeps them from the things only they can do. Second, founders hoard information, sharing so little with their teams that people cannot do their jobs well, contribute ideas, or understand how their work connects to the bigger picture. Third, founders promote their most trusted people into leadership roles without ever assessing whether those people can actually lead.

The Fix Is Simpler Than Founders Think

Dave’s advice is not complicated. Delegate decisions to the people closest to the customer. Share enough about the direction of the business that your team can contribute. And before you give anyone a title, assess whether they are actually built for leadership. Strategic planning does not have to be a formal multi-day event. It is simply knowing where you are going, sharing that with the right people, and revisiting it often enough to stay on track.

In Part 2 of his business life cycle series, Dave Bulloch joins host Mark to break down the three behavioral patterns that consistently stall growing businesses. Dave has seen these mistakes at organizations doing $5 million and at organizations doing $200 million. The industry does not matter. The behaviors do. This episode gives founders an honest, experience-backed look at what is quietly holding their business back and what to do about it.

Dave Bulloch is a seasoned executive, fractional leader, and former CEO with decades of experience across multiple industries and business sizes. He has worked in private equity, led operational turnarounds in organizations up to 400 employees, and currently works as a fractional executive helping growing businesses navigate succession planning, people strategy, and leadership development. This is Part 2 of a multi-episode series on the business life cycle.

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Tune in to our latest episode as Jeff Calibaba, serial entrepreneur and CEO of Game Plan HR, shares a career story that most people would struggle to fit into three lifetimes. From small-town Saskatchewan to becoming the first licensed paramedic in the province, Jeff has never approached a challenge the way everyone else does.

Stop Selling. Start Solving.

The thread that runs through every chapter of Jeff’s story is entrepreneurial problem solving at its most creative. When he entered the AED market, he did not compete on price. He built the HeartSave Awareness Program, a complete solution that handled funding, liability, and public awareness for municipalities, licensed by Medtronic and taken globally. When he became CEO of a traffic sign company with 350 staff and five locations, he applied the same thinking to create the Vision Zero Advocate Institute. In both cases, the product was never the product. The solution was.

The Power of Naming Your Process

Jeff credits the Strategic Coach Program with teaching him the single most important business lesson he knows: name your process and escape the commoditization trap. When you walk in with a program, a system, a named solution, the conversation changes entirely. People stop asking about price and start asking how they can get in. Jeff currently coaches 43 CEOs through Vistage peer groups, bringing this same philosophy to every leader he works with.

In this episode, Mark sits down with Jeff Calibaba, serial entrepreneur, CEO coach, and CEO of Game Plan HR. This is Part 1 of a two-part series. Jeff shares the career story behind his problem-solving philosophy, from becoming Saskatchewan’s first licensed paramedic, to building a 250,000-copy EMS reference guide, to taking an AED awareness program global with Medtronic, to leading a traffic sign company with 350 staff, to now coaching 43 CEOs through Vistage peer groups. The lesson woven through every chapter: stop competing on price and start solving every problem your customer has.

Jeff Calibaba is a serial entrepreneur, CEO coach, and the CEO of Game Plan HR. Originally from Radville, Saskatchewan, Jeff became the first licensed full-time paramedic in the province before building a career that spanned medical equipment distribution, AED awareness programs, traffic safety, and executive leadership coaching. He sold 250,000 copies of his EMS Pocket Reference Guide worldwide, took the HeartSave Awareness Program global through Medtronic, and served as CEO of a Western Canadian traffic sign company with 350 staff across five locations. Today Jeff coaches 43 CEOs through Vistage peer groups and runs Line Strategic Consulting alongside Game Plan HR. He is a long-time member of the Strategic Coach Program.

Connect with Jeff:

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Why traditional recruiting is broken is the central question in Episode 9, as host Mark sits down with Bryan Lee, business manager and executive recruiter at Concord Consulting. After 23 years in hotels and resorts — 13 of them in HR — Bryan has seen first-hand how the industry’s hiring playbook fails again and again.

The Resume Arms Race

Bryan breaks down a hiring cycle that has quietly become a guessing game: employers use AI to write job descriptions, candidates use AI to write resumes that mirror them back, and recruiters end up matching buzzwords instead of fit. “We don’t guess, we measure,” Bryan says — explaining why psychometric assessments are now central to his recruitment practice.

Generations, Misunderstood

The conversation shifts to generational dynamics in the workplace. Bryan reframes the usual generational blame game, showing how collective experiences — 9/11, COVID, housing costs, tuition inflation — shape each generation’s values rather than “laziness” or “entitlement.” His advice for leaders: stop assuming, start asking, and let real data — not narrative — drive hiring and retention strategy.

In this episode, Mark sits down with Bryan Lee — business manager, executive recruiter, and senior talent consultant at Concord Consulting. After 23 years in hotels and resorts, including 13 years in HR, Bryan brings a rare, cross-industry perspective on recruitment, retention, and the generational shifts reshaping today’s workforce.

Bryan Lee is a business manager, executive recruiter, and senior talent consultant at Concord Consulting. With 23 years of experience in hotels and resorts across Ontario, British Columbia, and Alberta — including 13 years in human resources at the director level — Bryan brings a uniquely cross-functional perspective on recruitment, retention, and workforce strategy across both unionized city properties and seasonal resort operations.

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Organizational culture and belonging are not just HR buzzwords at Calvert Home Mortgage — they are the foundation of everything the company does. In Season 2, Episode 8, host Mark sits down with Dean Koeller, CEO of Calvert Home Mortgage, a family-founded company that has grown into one of Canada’s most admired organizations, winning the Waterstone Canada’s Most Admired Corporate Culture award twice.

From Family Conflict to Cultural Clarity

Dean opens up about how working alongside his father and brother nearly broke the business apart — a family psychologist once told them it would never work. What saved them was structure, self-awareness, and the TRAITS model. Understanding each other’s personality profiles transformed conflict into complementarity, and that principle now runs throughout the entire organization, from hiring to onboarding to daily team communication.

What Belonging Really Means at Work

Dean’s definition of culture goes beyond perks and ping-pong tables. It is built on three pillars: mastery, autonomy, and meaning — and held together by belonging. Culture, he says, acts like an immune system: when someone does not fit, the organization naturally surfaces it. But psychological safety without accountability creates risk. The balance of both, under the umbrella of genuine belonging, is what makes organizations thrive — and what has made Calvert trusted, caring, and fast for nearly 50 years.

Dean Koeller is the CEO of Calvert Home Mortgage, a family-founded Canadian mortgage lender established in 1975. Under Dean’s leadership, Calvert has won the Waterstone Canada’s Most Admired Corporate Culture award twice and has been recognized by the Alberta Business Family Institute as Signature Family of the Year. Dean is a graduate of Singularity University’s executive program and is a passionate advocate for purpose-driven leadership, psychological safety, and building organizational cultures rooted in belonging.

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Business succession planning is not an exit conversation — it is a starting conversation. In Season 2, Episode 7, host Mark sits down with Dave Bulloch, a fractional executive with decades of experience leading organizations across multiple industries. Dave’s message is clear: the entrepreneurs who build the most valuable, resilient businesses are the ones who begin with the end in mind from the very first day.

The 3 Mistakes That Slow Business Growth

Dave walks through the critical missteps that quietly break growing businesses. First, entrepreneurs fail to define where they are taking their business — whether to a sale, a family handoff, or a professionally managed operation — and that lack of clarity costs them options later. Second, they hire people like themselves rather than building complementary teams, perpetuating the very weaknesses that limit growth. Third — and the one that stings most — they hand out titles too freely, trapping loyal employees in roles they are not qualified to hold and blocking the business from bringing in the leadership it actually needs.

The Right Fit for the Right Time

Dave’s core philosophy: you do not need someone to take you from A to Z. You need the right person to take you from A to B. Business succession planning is not one decision — it is a series of intentional choices about people, roles, and timing, made with discipline and honesty at every stage of the business life cycle.

Dave Bulloch is a seasoned executive and fractional leader with decades of experience in corporate finance, operations, and CEO-level leadership across multiple industries and business sizes. He specializes in helping growing businesses navigate succession planning, operational efficiency, and building the right leadership teams at the right time. Dave was previously featured in Season 1 of the podcast and returns for a new multi-episode series on the business life cycle.

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AI disruption in business is no longer a future concern — it is happening right now, and the organizations that fail to prepare will be left behind. In Season 2, Episode 6 of the podcast, Mark sits down with Joel Thompson, a CPA turned business optimization consultant and founder of Redline Consulting, to unpack one of the most pressing challenges facing leaders today: how to navigate the profound transformation that artificial intelligence is already triggering across every industry.

Joel brings a unique lens to the conversation. With decades of experience as an internal CFO for large construction companies, he has built his consulting practice around a simple but powerful framework: the three pillars of technology, people, and process. Now, with AI expanding one of those pillars at an exponential rate, everything else must adapt — and fast.

Unlike previous technological revolutions — the printing press, electricity, the automobile — AI is advancing at a compressed speed that the human mind struggles to comprehend. Joel uses the analogy of folding a piece of paper 42 times to reach the moon: we simply cannot visualize the scale of what is coming. The AI race between global superpowers has removed guardrails and flooded the space with investment, pushing capability far ahead of any meaningful application. “The engine has gotten way ahead of where the rest of us are even aware,” Joel explains.

Professional services firms — law, accounting, consulting — will feel AI disruption in business most acutely, and fastest. Joel breaks down how a $1,000 legal bill might soon look dramatically different when 80% of the work (research and collation) can be handled by AI in minutes. Margin compression is coming, and organizations that do not adapt their delivery model will simply stop getting calls. Product-based businesses will face a different, slower curve — but no one is immune.

One of the most thought-provoking moments of the episode is Joel’s insight about entry-level jobs. AI is eliminating the “grunt work” that has traditionally trained young professionals. Without those foundational stepping stones — the research, the data entry, the clerical roles — how do people build the experience and wisdom needed to validate AI outputs, catch hallucinations, and make sound judgment calls? This is a challenge that organizations and educators have not yet begun to solve.

Joel draws a critical distinction: AI is artificial intelligence, not artificial wisdom. Knowing that a tomato is a fruit is intelligence. Knowing not to put it in a fruit salad is wisdom. As AI takes over knowledge-gathering and processing tasks, the value of human experience — the ability to do a “reasonableness check” — becomes more important, not less. Experienced leaders who can translate between business and technology, validate AI outputs, and design robust systems will become the most valuable people in any organization.

Joel’s three pillars — technology, people, and process — remain as relevant as ever, but they must evolve together. A business that invests heavily in AI technology without updating its processes or preparing its people will create new bottlenecks rather than removing old ones. “Leadership without process is chaos,” he notes, “and process without leadership is bureaucracy.” The goal is balance — and the integration point is always process.

Joel’s message to leaders is urgent: get to 30,000 feet and rethink your business model. Start small pilot projects. Build an innovation mindset across your team. Get people comfortable sharing and improving processes rather than hoarding knowledge out of fear. And above all — don’t wait. This is musical chairs, and the music is already playing.

Whether you are running a construction company, a professional services firm, or a small entrepreneurial business, this episode delivers a clear-eyed, practical perspective on AI disruption in business that will challenge how you think about technology, your team, and the future of your organization.

Joel Thompson is a CPA and business optimization consultant who has spent decades as an internal CFO for large construction companies. He is the founder of Redline Consulting, a firm that helps businesses align their technology, people, and processes to remove bottlenecks, streamline operations, and achieve exponential growth. Joel is a sought-after speaker on AI disruption in business and the future of work.

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In the Season 2 of The TRAITS Podcast, host Mark Frentz and DeWayne Fliss, founder of Concord Consulting, bring the story full circle: exploring the science behind leadership and how decades of research and real-world experience shaped the foundations of TRAITS.

After years of helping organizations grow from small teams to multimillion-dollar enterprises, DeWayne noticed a pattern: every successful company reaches a stage where technical skills and intuition aren’t enough. They need structure, strategy, and self-awareness at the leadership level.

This episode dives into how organizations evolve through growth stages and how leaders must adapt from entrepreneurial drive to strategic discipline. DeWayne unpacks the core principles behind TRAITS and the research that revealed that leadership is not art or instinct, it’s a science of human behaviour, motivation, and fit.

Listeners will learn:

✅ When companies need to redefine what “strategic activities” really are.
✅ How to recognize the turning point where founders must shift from doing to leading.
✅ Why alignment between strategy, structure, and people determines long-term performance.
✅ How technology and HR evolve into strategic functions at scale.
✅ What “the science behind leadership” looks like in practice.

DeWayne shares examples of companies that outgrew their systems and had to re-engineer their leadership approach, introducing strategic roles like finance, HR, and marketing as organizations approach $50 million and beyond. He explains how the language of leadership shifts from reacting to anticipating and how data, clarity, and self-awareness enable leaders to build organizations that last.

By the end of the episode, listeners see how DeWayne’s engineering precision, behavioural insight, and strategic thinking combined to create TRAITS, the tool that bridges the gap between knowing your people and leading them effectively.

It’s a fitting finale to his series: a blueprint for leaders who want to move from growth to longevity and build organizations designed to endure.

00:00 – Series recap and DeWayne’s final chapter
03:20 – The science behind leadership and organizational growth
09:45 – When entrepreneurial instinct stops working
16:15 – The shift from tactics to strategy
24:00 – Strategic roles and why they appear as companies scale
33:50 – Technology and HR as strategic functions
42:30 – The data-driven future of leadership
49:55 – Closing thoughts: building organizations that endure

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In Season 2, Episode 4 of The TRAITS Podcast, host Mark Frentz and DeWayne Fliss, founder of Concord Consulting, take a hard look at one of the most common problems growing organizations face: why companies struggle to scale.

Building on his engineering and leadership insights, DeWayne reveals how even the strongest organizations can experience “cracks in the foundation”—early warning signs of misalignment that appear as companies grow. These cracks may begin small, but left unaddressed, they widen until entire systems—and relationships—start to break down.

Drawing from decades of consulting and leadership experience, DeWayne explains that scaling problems rarely come from strategy or market conditions. They come from people, structure, and communication—areas that leaders often overlook when growth is good.

In this episode, Mark and DeWayne discuss:

✅ The three most common reasons why companies struggle to scale—and how to spot them early.
✅ Why leadership misalignment creates performance plateaus.
✅ How rapid growth can hide systemic issues that resurface later.
✅ The importance of redefining roles, responsibilities, and structure as organizations evolve.
✅ The moment leaders must shift from managing to mentoring.

DeWayne shares powerful analogies between engineering principles and organizational behaviour. Just as a structure’s integrity depends on its unseen framework, a company’s success depends on its internal alignment—the trust, clarity, and accountability connecting its people.

Listeners will hear stories of real-world clients who faced growth bottlenecks not because of demand, but because their teams and systems weren’t ready to support the next level. DeWayne unpacks how these companies overcame their challenges by strengthening leadership communication, refining accountability systems, and clarifying strategic priorities.

By the end of this episode, you’ll understand that companies don’t fail because they grow too fast—they fail because they don’t grow intentionally.

This conversation is essential for leaders, HR professionals, and entrepreneurs who want to prevent performance cracks before they turn into cultural collapses.

00:00 – Introduction: Revisiting lessons from engineering and leadership
03:15 – The first signs of cracks in growing organizations
08:40 – Why structure breaks when leadership alignment is missing
16:25 – How scaling too fast hides cultural weaknesses
25:10 – The importance of redefining leadership roles during growth
34:50 – Turning cracks into opportunities for clarity
42:00 – The mindset that separates reactive managers from proactive leaders

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