Culture

In a recent conversation with Dr. Wesley Burks (most recently CEO of UNC Health), several key concepts emerged.

Uncertainty will always be part of the leadership journey, and there’s no one blueprint for how to lead perfectly through all of it.

Leadership essentials are sneaky. They seem basic, but they are the very things we need to revisit – like LeBron, the pianist, and the senior leader – to reach the untapped potential we have lying inside us.

It’s time to do the right thing, not to try to manufacture the right measures or put employees to the test. Doing the right thing starts with leaders asking questions and measuring their own actions.

The world’s best strategy activation leader intuitively lives by these beliefs and knows they’re no longer measured by their individual brilliance but by their ability to serve others by shifting mindsets and building capabilities across the enterprise.

The purpose of strategic planning is not to make plans. It is to change the way that we think and act. It requires changing behaviors.

How do we create conversations that can change our teams, organizations, and even the world? How can we create meeting spaces people look forward to being in? How do we make our meetings safe spaces for honest conversations? Here are some of the tenets of the art of thinking together.

As you prepare to activate your strategy, remember who helps bring it to life: YOUR PEOPLE. Here are eight steps to help bring your plans to reality together.

The Learning Map® experience captures the essence of the time-honored campfire and is a way to bring people together.

More is lost by indecision than by making the wrong decision. Yes, the wrong decision is better than indecision.

For so many organizations, performance improvement has become something of a stalemate. We wag our finger at underperformers and then point at the high performers, saying, “Why can’t you be more like them?” We showcase our highest achievers at annual conferences or in company-wide webinars and ask them to tell us what makes them so great. After all, since their work is so exceptional, they must have some tricks of the trade to share, right?

The elevation to high performance took a major leap by understanding and appreciating each other’s stories.

Root, part of Accenture, brings deep expertise in Strategy Activation. Working across industries, Root uses unique visual tools and methods to engage all levels of an organization and align, implement, and sustain strategies for accelerated results.

When a senior team makes behavioral ground rules or behavioral expectations like this for the team as a whole and for each member individually, they’ll be well on their way to high performance

The CHRO is a critical component of long-term organizational growth, so how can CEOs empower their CHROs to give rise to growth?

Keeping your people engaged after a reduction in force

Making your strategy make it feasible, relevant, and sustainable is the key to long lasting results.

The holidays are often a hectic time of year. What are you doing to keep your people engaged? Here are three tips to use now and all year long.

How prepared are your people for the changes that 2023 will bring? Take this assessment to find out.

Are you thinking about your KPIs in the wrong way? How Fantasy Football can help you reach your goals.

Successful change occurs when you empower a group of people to help lead the change; here are 3 skills everyone needs.

Eight lessons to ensure you're invigorating the power of human beings to make a difference.

Is your organization achieving growth and change? If you're struggling, consider adopting a life centric strategy. Not sure how? Learn more here.

Culture must be at the forefront of leaders’ minds before, during, and after an M&A. Here are key things to do, as well as to avoid, during this critical time.

Strategy activation isn't simple, but there are proven ways to successfully activate the strategies that drive organizational and cultural change. Do you know them?

Interested in improving your leadership skills? Read this excerpt of Brad Haudan's interview with Karin Blair on how to engage others in your strategy story.

Employee engagement continues to be a priority for organizations, but we have four roots of engagement that can help reverse this issue. Keep reading to learn more!

Strategic change is a process. Do you have the right plan in place & the know-how to execute it successfully?

When it comes to learning & development one group isn’t getting enough attention, and these folks often have the most impact on the business: managers.

Employees are setting the standards. They are forcing the changes. Is your organization listening?

Quiet quitting has been a long-standing issue plaguing organizations worldwide for years. It's time to fix the issue. Do you have a plan?

Do you hold people accountable or do you CREATE accountability? The difference is important and could change the way your people feel about work.

As a company, you have one chance to make a good first impression on your new hires. What would they say about the impression you make?

Is your organization ready for strategy activation? Ask yourself these 8 questions and assess if you're likely to succeed...or struggle.

Are you multilingual? If you take time to learn your internal customer’s language, they'll recognize your effort and become more open to your recommendations.

Without engaged and excited employees, the best plans are rendered useless. Here are five tips to help you entice employees to help activate your strategy.

Job crafting is a powerful tool and can help employees find long-term enjoyment at work. Is job crafting a priority at your organization?

Leaders must prioritize employees while leveraging the latest automated systems, self-service, chat bots & more. Not sure if you're ready? This white paper can help.

The lessons learned through others can be extremely impactful on your journey. Here are some quotes to inspire you at work and beyond.

Dialogue brings people together and elicits curiosity. Hear what healthcare leaders had to say about data, Machine Learning, creating cultures of trust & more.

Creating an inclusive and diverse workplace is critical to creating a positive culture and employee experience. Are you taking the right steps?

Onboarding is critical to retaining talent & empowering employees to contribute to strategic goals. Is your organization onboarding the right way?

One of the most important elements of any plan is the "why." If you make your "why" a focus, your initiatives will undoubtedly be a lot more successful.

Good strategies require different input & strengths to be effective. Silos are debilitating to good strategies. Use these 3 tips to stop silos from blocking success.

To get your people excited about a new initiative, make sure you get the "skeptic" on your side. Here are three tips to do this with success.

To increase the odds of success, here are three mistakes to avoid when activating your next initiative.

Storytelling is a leadership blind spot that has been facing the business world for the past 20 years. It’s time to address this.

Organizational change is never simple, and an M&A is no exception. To maximize success, follow these 5 tips that focus on culture, your people & communications.

While many strategies fail, the truth is that with some thoughtful planning and time, you too can pave the way for strategy activation success.

An organization's culture is one of its main selling points. Unsure if your culture appeals to today's employee? It's time to figure it out.

People are reassessing how they spend their time. If leaders want to keep valuable employees, they need to become active players in the Great Reassessment.

Employees want to be a part of something bigger, to belong, to go on meaningful journeys & make an impact. Here's how to make this a reality within your organization.

Companies that deliver great customer experiences also deliver great employee experiences. Do you have a winning employee strategy in place?

Leading organizations that meet people where they are & can adapt to change is hard, but not impossible when leaders have the right mindset.

Assuming positive intent is the single behavior that high-performance teams choose time and again. How’s your intent meter reading?

The way we train our employees needs to change. Are you using mobile devices? Are you embracing microlearning? If not, the time is now.

What if people need to stop waiting to receive what they want and instead start changing their own experience, with or without permission?

It's time to help your people understand that while change is out of our control, how we respond to it is very much in our control.

To help their organizations realize success, leaders need to create high-quality experiences that unlock their peoples' discretionary efforts. Are you ready?

Employees are your most important customers. It’s time to start treating them that way. Here are three tips to help.

Today leaders must do more to create a place that reenergizes people & enables them to contribute their best. Here are two key questions to ask.

Asking the right questions is instrumental in developing the right strategy for your people and your organization. This exercise will help you get started.

Dialogue is at the root of all effective engagement and group action. Here are six tips to help ensure that dialogue thrives at your organization.

Arming employees with the confidence, knowledge & support to deliver amazing person-to-person interactions is critical. Do you have a winning strategy?

Employees are resigning from their jobs at rates we’ve never seen before, making it clear that they’re the ones with the power. Leaders and organizations must adapt to meet the needs of today’s workers.

Smart decision-making creates countless benefits for your business. Do you have an effective process in place?

According to a Harvard study, 85 percent of professional success comes from people skills. Here are five tips to help you find more success!

Being a manager is tougher than ever. Here are six tips to help this indispensable role perform to the best of their abilities.

Great leaders know how to actively listen and empower rather than direct and tell. It's the best way to unlock the power of human capital.

Without the right behaviors, strategy execution will fail every single time. Leaders must go first by walking the walk and talking the talk.

If you want your organization to succeed leaders must tell the truth about their reality, discuss the tough issues, and commit to changing negative behaviors.

Change only occurs when there is a clear picture of where things are and where we want to go. The change vision must convey how tomorrow will be different from today.

Many companies share the same core strategy. The differentiator is the ability to execute – getting aligned on a vision & getting the priorities right. 

What are you doing to tell your sustainability story? The time to hone this part of your organization’s strategy is now.

Innovation and change are paramount to any organization that wants to be a market leader. Here are 9 tips to help leaders make the difficulties of change more palatable, and better yet, lead to success!

Visualization can help take the sting out of change by adding the necessary context that is so often neglected in corporate communication.

If you expect emotional and behavioral change of others, you must first expect it of yourselves.

Managers must need to know how to lead with Empathy 2.0 if you want to get the best out of your people. Are they ready?

Hiring managers are focused on the wrong things. Look for the characteristics of high performers and forget everything else.

Five tips to help leaders craft a strategic plan that can be the gateway to sustained success.

The utility industry is complex and uncertainty is creating stress for your people. It's time to prepare for change.

Why should you be using strategic visuals in your organization? Because strategic visuals are powerful and time-tested. And they work!

As leadership teams discuss plans for hybrid work and culture, they’re relying on HR leaders to successfully develop and engage their people.

We can't return to the “old” ways of working or leading. Here are three do's and dont's for a post-Covid workplace.

Root helps clients use visual storytelling because integrating comics with research, data, and structured dialogue is an effective way to embrace change.

Neither the amount of change being faced in the workplace nor the pace of change is about to let up. Leaders need to work harder to ensure their managers are ready.

Change is rarely, if ever, easy. Here are four fundamental steps to help your people get ready to create change for your business.

Leaders must embrace and help people navigate the obstacles of the middle point of a transformation when new behaviors are being adopted.

If your organization hasn’t honed its virtual event skill set yet and still needs to figure out how to combine virtual events with in-person experiences, the time is now.

DEI training can be a spark for change, but it must be oriented within a larger story and tie to organization-wide efforts.

Yes, it is possible for your organization to rise above the current talent-shortage trend and cultivate its next generation of leaders.

Your talent shortage has more to do with you and your organization than it does with the talent you're trying to recruit or retain.

What are you doing to improve the energy and attitude among your peers and teams? If you're stumped, read on for some tips to create a positive work environment.

Jim Haudan discusses diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), and mental health with six C-suite leaders.

For organizations to create the connections that mitigate unconscious bias, focus on empathy. Here are three actions to take.

Digital transformation isn't only about technology. This type of change requires a human-centered approach. Here are four things leaders should know.

How can organizations build and maintain trust with customers and communities? It's time to turn your employees into businesspeople.

We are currently all at risk of cultural tunnel vision. And so we must work harder to establish mutual empathy and stronger connections.

Eradicating the impact of bias from the workplace isn't easy. The first step is resetting our unconscious bias goals and setting achievable measures of success.

High-performance teams are the result of people committing to build something together that is special. Here are tips to make this happen at your organization.

Creating highly connected and bonded teams is different now. Three habits leaders can adopt to create connections and help people feel valued.

Working from home can be isolating. To help with this challenge, successful leaders weigh in on how to create cohesive and engaged workplaces.

Unconscious bias training doesn't work. Here are three reasons bias trainings often fail and what we propose doing differently.

Building change resilience across your business is achievable. Try using "empathy 2.0" to tune in to what matters most to your people during the change at hand.

Bite-sized learning and 60-minute modules aren't the only options. 15 minutes might be all you need to get the job done.

For an organization to conceptualize and roll out transformative change, it needs every single employee on board. Click for tips.

To build resiliency and lift the fog of change fatigue that is our reality in 2021, we must think differently about how we lead change. Consider these three tips.

Strategy without execution is meaningless and execution without senior team engagement is impossible. Leaders set the tone and must change first.

How can leaders create engagment despite the tidal wave of chaos casued by the pandemic? Celebrate your teams any chance you get.

Planning a virtual event? Check out these 10 tips to ensure that your organization's online interactions are as impactful as face-to-face ones.

Want to make sure your business doesn't wind up hanging on by a thread? Check out proven success stories and tips to drive innovation.

Preparing for change? Here are three tips for leaders to mitigate risks and help prepare their people for the road ahead. Change isn't easy, but yes, it is achievable!

For an organization to succeed it must have a strategy for creating a winning employee experience. Feeling stuck? Read on for three tips.

Health care providers will receive potentially lifesaving COVID-19 vaccines in the coming weeks. The biggest obstacle sn’t access to freezer space or distribution – it's convincing caregivers and then the public to get the vaccine. Here are three critical ingredients to getting authentic buy-in from within your organization.

Create emotional and intellectual understanding of strategy and priorities. Enable remote, shared learning using visualization and dialogue.

In many cases, the flurry of DEI-related activity in 2020 has been healthy, productive, and long overdue. If you're struggling with creating a diverse, more equitable, and more inclusive organization, read on for tips and strategic advice to help you on this journey.

The concept of “giving back” is showing up outside the expected.It appears to be a critical ingredient in sustaining meaningful human behavior change.

The goal of a virtual event is to create a directed experience that you can control, people can unify around, and everyone will remember.

If you’re delivering the same customer experience today as you were in January 2020, you’re doing things wrong. To help you get it right, let's talk about a brand that is “blowing up the box” on their customer experience. First up: Hilton Hotels.

Companies that can turn obstacles into opportunities will be the ones to remain standing in the end. Check out these tips.

Did you know that people don’t resist change? It's true. They resist being told to change or being changed by someone else. This is an important distinction and one that leaders must take to heart.

A servant leader's goal is to bring the best out of others and help them work at a higher level. Here are six reasons why servant leadership really works.

People must understand how a business operates and what it takes to win if they give their best efforts. Three tips to encourage everyone to work together.

Strategy without execution is meaningless, and execution without engagement is impossible. Is your company actually executing your strategy through people.

Strategic change requires engagement - not just emails, videos or powerpoint presentations Metaphors, visualization, and discussion can help.

Traditional gender roles still hold firm in most financial institutions and large purchasing processes and experiences. However, in today’s highly competitive market, financial services organizations need to take practical steps to serve female investors more effectively. The institutions that win with (millennial) female investors will be unstoppable.

To help health systems shift from crisis response to financial and operational recovery, leaders must engage people in the organization's financial story and encourage accountability for how their efforts affect financial performance.

The way we live, work, socialize, travel, learn and more is all a bit (or a lot) different now. Today incremental change is not enough – you can’t just think “outside the box.” You need to blow up the damn box. Here's how.

Few people welcome change. In fact, most of us fear it. But there are ways to set your organization up for success. Change isn't easy. But it is possible. Are you ready to learn how to make your change stick?

Believe it or not, along with discomfort comes opportunity – because we are forced to think in a new way and push ourselves to find a solution we didn’t see initially. And that’s the path to a breakthrough.

Creating an exceptional patient experience is more critical (and more difficult) than ever. How you address challenges dictates patient's perceptions.

I miss hallway conversations -- not the actual hallway, but the connections. The performance and emotional health of your people in this new virtual work from home world requires leaders to help create deliberate and purposeful connections. Are you prepared?

Is your organization establishing new health & safety rules as a result of COVID-19? This is an opportunity to create a long-term competitive advantage.

Improve patient experience by first identifying points of patient frustration, and then targeting areas on the patient journey that need intervention.

At Root, we believe in challenging you to become a disruptor, and then empowering you and your people to get engaged in that journey. It's time - will you disrupt or stay stagnant and watch someone disrupt you. What do you choose?

The world isn’t going to stop changing so what is your retail or hospitality business doing to pivot and adjust strategy to meet customers where they are?

During change people want and need three things: clarity, connection, and conversation and messaging needs to address each of these elements.

As change continues to accelerate, business agility becomes an organizational imperative. Pivoting quickly is an imperative for organizations to survive.

When it comes to enacting change, how do you encourage your people to do it with a consistency that creates an effective and successful CX?

When smart and agile leaders lead with vulnerability and heart, they change our relationship with work forever. If the current crisis leads us to a more engaged workforce, that would constitute one positive outcome.

Organizations need to implement changes to navigate tremendous challenges. Communicating effectively has never been more critical than it is right now.

If your people don’t trust your leadership, then navigating a crisis and delivering future success become nearly impossible.

COVID-19 has created a radical sales shift from exchanging pleasantries to creating intimacy. Developing deeper client relationships is transformational.

Jim Haudan speaks with Dr. Rick Lofgren, president and CEO of UC Health, and Charlie Piscitello, chief people officer at Acutus Medical, Inc. to get their thoughts as how leaders can best lead during challenging times.

As you continue to perfect your contactless customer experience, think about how your people will help bring the digital experience to life.

During large-scale change, being nimble is key. You must be know your Why, but be prepared to adjust your what and how as new challenges arise. Let your purpose, your why, guide you and your people to achieve long-term success in the end.

Since people can “shop” for health care just as they scroll the internet researching their next car purchase, it’s clear that patients are now customers.

Engagement surveys have a place and time.This is not it. But it's still critical to know what people are thinking,to guide organizational shifts.

While we certainly value in-person gatherings, you can’t afford to put events on hold even if you can’t be together. Your business and strategy can’t wait.

The only way to catalyze and accelerate results is through your people. You need to move fast right now. But you can’t skip steps.

Insights on how to think about challenges at the intersection of strategy and operations.Specifically, how to make the complicated a little more simple.

Be agile, flexible, and ready to change course at a moment’s notice. Don’t wait around for someone else to save you. Control your own destiny!

Understanding your current state, capabilities, and future impact can help you come down the mountain at a pace that keeps you in control.

Recently, Root Inc. co-founder Jim Haudan met via video conference with Jim Boomgard, president and chief executive officer of DAI: International Development, and Joe Morgan, seasoned CEO, advisor and strategist, to get their insights on leadership during the Covid-19 crisis.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, shaking hands or giving hugs when you greet someone is likely a thing of the past. This pandemic has accelerated and intensified the need to reinvent the customer experience, too. We need to reinvent the handshake and CX – and we need to do it right now.

Our health industry expert and managing director, Kalen Stanton, and Vanderbilt Health leaders Dr. Paul Sternberg, Chief Medical Officer and Brian Carlson, Senior Director of Patient Experience, share insight on how to inspire and engage clinical teams to deliver personalized patient care.

Right now you’re seeing the needs of your customers change dramatically, which requires operations changes.Your employee experience needs to change too.

We can only be nimble when we have the right culture and agree on the behaviors that make it work. There are four primary behaviors that drive agility.

To maintain a positive culture that drives results, leaders need to constantly nurture it. Throw in a global pandemic and the need becomes exponentially greater precisely when we are most distracted. But positive culture in this environment is not optional – it’s necessary! Here are three strategies you can implement immediately.

Changing our behaviors to flatten the curve is a major societal change, but we go through the same phases when faced with change in our work. When your team is facing change – big or small – there are four elements to creating lasting change to consider and plan for.

In this episode, we’re tackling the very current topic of leading during a crisis. We want to share insight on what health care leaders – and leaders in all industries – should be doing to help guide their people during this unprecedented and very worrisome time.

Training your people can be difficult because it is often seen as boring and not helpful. Here are 9 ways to train and motivate your people successfully.

Our natural reaction to change – the instinct to panic – hasn’t changed since the time of Heraclitus. It’s the way our brains are wired: change is a threat

Prior to COVID-19, the broader talent community was already migrating toward blended programs of in-person, virtual, and digital modalities. The current situation has put a spotlight on the need to rethink how organizations come together to develop their capabilities and skills.

There has been a lot of great content put out about how to lead and engage your people and your organization in times like these. However, I haven’t come across much that is targeted at the individual. Yes, leaders need guidance, but as an individual I want advice on how best to navigate these difficult waters too.

What can I learn from this crisis in relation to helping people adopt new technologies in the workplace? For me, this is not just about the technology. It’s about people. It’s about learning. It’s about maintaining both personal and professional connections during a time when it’s very easy to feel isolated.

Working from home, or “WFH” as it is now often called, is becoming increasingly common in the modern workplace. To help those who find working from home challenging, here are some tips for staying motivated and being efficient.

Thriving through change, rather than just surviving, requires (virtually) capturing t¬he voice of your employees and customers. These insights are valuable for your strategic decisions, and their engagement is critical to coming out of the present situation stronger than ever.

My mindset can’t be that of a marathon runner or a sprinter during these uncertain times. Instead, I think we should embrace an interval training mentality.

As we grapple with the challenges of maintaining health and safety, business continuity, and jobs, it’s easy to forget that your people need self-care.

The coronavirus has forced many to cancel meetings, conferences, and gatherings that were previously considered essential. Don't go dark, go virtual! Here are our top tips for driving virtual engagement that works.

Leaders need to be thinking about how Coronavirus will impact all facets of their business. Regardless of the fear circulating, we needed to remain productive and leaders must develop plans that address the risks while striving to stick to normal operations as much as possible.

Today I'm discussing change & consistent CX. Today you need to either keep pace with change or risk failure. And when it coems to CX, organizations need to be consistent because the experiences created for customers are the pathway to success or failure.

When it comes to healthcare, the patient experience is always paramount. But the employee experience must be core to the organization’s strategy and culture.

While welcoming adversity might feel counterintuitive and against how most human brains are wired, the benefits are huge. So the next time you’re facing what you would normally consider an undesirable and unexpected problem, try hugging that thunderstorm of adversity. Odds are, you’re about to see your personal growth skyrocket.

Leaders need to tell stories because facts tell, and stories sell. Stories create connections. I feel like everyone does have a good story to tell; they just always don't know how to organize their facts in a compelling way.

Change is only as effective as its sustainment effort. You need people thinking about it, talking about it, doing something with it for change to stick.

The best chief strategy officers I engage with today are not only analytically brilliant, but they are also world-class storytellers and architects of change plans to evolve culture or build new organizational capabilities.

Yes, bots are taking over the tactical, but they won’t replace the humans – they’re here to help humans focus on the bigger and more strategic issues of CX.

Is employee engagement a buzzword? What leaders can do to foster an engaged workforce.

We asked members of the workforce to name their organization’s top priority for 2020. Are you helping your people connect the dots of your strategy ?

Each day, I work alongside a team of people who are equally passionate about proving that change is possible.

The importance of exceptional service was ingrained in me before the term “customer experience” was ever created. My grandfather, and then my parents, operated the business with the following mindset: “The customer is always right – even when they’re wrong.”

Not long ago, several of us at Root got a chance to work with a Division I college football team to help reestablish a high-performance culture and team.

My role, leading our CX team, gave me insight into how easy it is to initiate organizational change and how hard it is to sustain real change.

I had chosen to view this challenge as a threat rather than an opportunity. Of course I hadn’t seen progress; I had been operating with a “fixed mindset.”

Creating change mindsets during financial downturns requires doubling down on engaging your people in your strategic priorities to maintain focus.

How are you being intentional about learning? What routines or practices can you share to help others succeed at the skill of learning?

What kind of a decision-maker are you? Whether individual contributors, managers, or executive leaders, the decision-making process is very important.

There is a decision-making process that blends the need to make fact-based decisions with the urgency to act, while tapping the immense knowledge

Organizational change is unavoidable. Here are four tips to keep operations running smoothly amid change.

Tips to help talent leaders to find a talent development solution (buy or build) that best fits the needs of their people and business.

Our latest In Light of Change podcast features change leaders Dr. Alison Tothy and Eric Passon discussing the power of marrying data with storytelling.

People have longed for connection at all times. If you do this for the people you work with and for clients, they will be become your greatest cheerleaders

Values, purpose and mission should align to the work an organization does—and all the decisions made along the way

PowerPoint effectively showcases data, but it might not be an effective engagement tool or the best way to get people to care about what you're sharing.

One of our clients is in the telecommunications space, and working with them led to what became the best experience I’ve had in my role as a Concept Artist.

The times when we need to be the most conscious of others are when things get chaotic, stress levels run high, and deadlines loom. But, this rarely happens.

Change requires commitment, focus and a process that gives every single person in the company a connection to the strategy.

There is nothing better than working in an organization that has a great culture. According to Deloitte, 94% of executives and 88% of employees believe

We’ve all experienced it before. A new piece of technology is introduced that’s designed to make the workforce faster, smarter, and more efficient.

Jim Haudan, and Rich Berens of Root Inc. detail 5 leadership blind spots that hinder employee engagement and innovation in the workplace.

You have a new strategy and need employee engagement ideas? Combining metaphors, visualization and discussion enables your strategy to be a success.

To create employee engagement strategies that last, it takes more than a ping pong table and snacks. Here some people actually care about at work.

Build better employee engagement by creating super super fan employees. Super fan employees are game changers to their organizations.