Insights

Practical, people-centered ideas on management, engagement, and the people experience.

  • The Invisible Signals of Culture

    People learn culture by watching what gets rewarded, ignored, or excused. Managers broadcast culture through small cues: tone, timing, follow -up, and attention. These signals often matter more than any policy or mission statement. Research from Harvard Business Review (“The Leader’s Guide to Corporate Culture,” Groysberg, Lee, Price, and Cheng, 2018) found that culture is…

  • Designing for Fairness

    Fairness isn’t a feeling. It’s a design choice. People experience fairness not just in outcomes but in how decisions are made and communicated. Even the right decision can feel wrong if the process lacks transparency. In “Fairly Meaningful: Mechanisms Linking Organizational Fairness to Perceived Meaningfulness” (Si, Xiao, and Chen, 2022, Journal of Business Ethics ),…

  • The Moments That Shape Memory

    People don’t remember everything that happens at work. They remember how it felt. Moments of recognition, fairness, or frustration become the stories people carry long after projects end. While managers cannot control every moment, they can influence which ones define the experience. In their book The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact…

  • Management Is Design Work

    Every manager is an experience designer. Some just don’t realize it. Managers shape how people feel at work through how they assign work, communicate, and make decisions. Each of those moments sends a signal about what’s valued, what’s safe, and what success looks like. Design happens whether it’s intentional or not. The difference between great…

  • The Trust Ripple

    Trust does not stop at the people–manager relationship. It ripples. When people trust their manager, they extend that trust outward to peers, customers, and company executives. When they do not, skepticism spreads faster than any communication campaign ever could. Teams that trust internally perform better externally. In service organizations especially, the customer experience reflects the…

  • When Trust Breaks

    Trust takes months to build. It can take one moment to question. Every manager eventually faces a moment when trust is tested. It might be a broken promise, a misunderstood action, or a silence that feels like avoidance. We are all human. Mistakes and missteps are inevitable. What matters most is the strength of your…