October 2025

If you’re a business owner, executive, or manager, here’s a hard truth. Just because you aren’t hearing negative feedback, it doesn’t mean you’re doing a great job.

It might mean your customers are tired of hopping through hoops to get heard and have given up trying. It might also mean your employees have stopped caring or they feel their efforts to affect change are futile against systems that insulate you and other leaders from what you need most, the truth. Your problems aren’t gone—they’re just hidden underground and waiting.

Remember that pain is never too great for people who don’t have to feel it.

I was reminded of that while watching an old Joe Pesci movie called The Super. It was based on a real New York City landlord, Morris Gross, who racked up over 400 housing code violations and was sentenced to live in one of his neglected buildings. In the film, Pesci’s character was forced to live under house arrest in one of his rundown properties. He became both tenant and superintendent.

Think about that. He was made a customer of his own property management company and a frontline employee at the same time.

That movie delivered a lesson every business leader should take to heart. When you don’t feel the pain your customers or employees feel, it’s easy to underestimate how bad it really is. And when you’re the one causing it, whether through policies, pricing, or plain neglect, there needs to be a greater sense of urgency to fix things.

The movie was one thing. But I also saw this play out in real life recently, twice.

The first time was at a four-star hotel in Las Vegas. I checked in, bags in hand, ready to relax—until I was hit with a mandatory $56 resort fee. I asked what it covered: a landline phone (which I’d never use), access to the gym (I’d already exercised), and use of the pool—from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

I felt manipulated, but moving to another hotel meant more hassle, fees, and headaches. So I paid the $56—not for value, but for convenience. I hoped things would get better. They didn’t.

It was 4:41 p.m. The pool was basically a non-option. Checkout was at 11 a.m., so the window for actually using the amenity I paid for was about an hour the next morning.

The next morning, I trekked to the pool, only to be stopped by security. The room key wasn’t enough; they wanted ID. My son is older than 21, and sadly, I will never pass for that age again. I was clearly over 21, had already shown ID at check-in, and had a valid room key, but the guard made me go all the way back to my room to fetch it. No flexibility. No common sense. Just another hoop to jump through.

Later, I asked to speak with the general manager. She wasn’t around. A supervisor came out instead—polite, empathetic, and honest. She admitted she couldn’t change any of the policies and said, “If you really want to help, leave a bad review. Corporate doesn’t listen to us. But they do pay attention to bad reviews.”

That stuck with me. A front-line employee encouraged a customer to publicly criticize her own company, not out of spite, but out of desperation. Her experience in the five years she worked there taught her that the people at the top wouldn’t listen otherwise. It was also obvious they hadn’t stayed at their own hotel recently as guests, and found out for themselves, first-hand, how unfriendly and tone-deaf some of their policies really were.

And it’s not just hotels. My experience with a new healthcare provider was equally underwhelming.

After moving to a new state, I tried to sign up for my healthcare provider’s new patient app. The process, I was told, would be simple and only take a few minutes. They gave me a number to call from home to get help.

It took almost an hour, and that number sent me through six or seven different people, each suggesting a different course of action. Nobody knew for sure what I needed to do. They were all guessing.

Eventually, the app just started working. I got lucky. But I couldn’t help thinking: how many other patients gave up?

I filled out the patient satisfaction survey they sent after it was all over. I praised the medical staff, but laid out the failure of the app rollout. I got an email reply saying, “We’re sorry our service didn’t meet your expectations” as if the problem was with me or my expectations.

Later, I also received an email from a person on their staff who acknowledged my review and gave me her name and number if there was anything more I would wish to share with them.

I truly appreciated the offer to talk, and I called. After 18 minutes of transfers and repeating my info, I finally got through. The woman confirmed what I suspected—it should’ve taken one person a few minutes to get me set up on their app, and my experience didn’t meet their expectations either.

Then I asked her if she had the authority to affect the policies, procedures, and training necessary to fix these issues. No. Her job was simply to pass feedback to executives.

Clearly, the executives in charge had not recently experienced the pain of being a new patient OR a front-line employee dealing with the headaches and hassles resulting from their failures.

The executives were shielded from the chaos they created. They believed the absence of complaints meant patient satisfaction, when in reality, the lack of complaints and feedback, based on my personal experience, probably had a lot more to do with the amount of hassle and time it took to get anyone involved in their quality process to listen. In my case, it took 18 minutes, and I still hung up frustrated because the person I waited to talk to still didn’t have the power to fix the obvious problems associated with their app signup process.

So let me challenge you. If you’re in charge of a company, a department, or even a team, don’t assume silence equals success. Don’t assume your policies make sense just because no one’s pushing back.

Here’s What to Do Instead

Step 1: Work some frontline shifts.

Answer the phones. Handle customer issues. Do the grunt work. Feel the impact of your decisions from the bottom up.

Step 2: Be your own customer.

Call your own help desk. Try your own app. Stay in your own hotel. Follow every step your customers do, without using your title to skip the line.

What you’ll learn might change the way you lead, educate staff, or select the caliber of people on your team.

Spreadsheets won’t tell you when people feel cheated. Reports won’t show you the moment someone gives up trying to offer their feedback. Employees who want to preserve their jobs might be inclined to tell you what you want to hear, exaggerate good news, or sugarcoat what can sometimes be some ugly truths.

If you really want to know what’s broken in your business, start experiencing it like your customers and front-line employees do.

If you think union organizing is just about meetings and petitions, think again. In our recent interview with labor strategist Jason Greer, he peeled back the curtain on union tactics that few leaders understand, until it’s too late.

From embedding organizers inside churches and communities to infiltrating companies with “professional friends,” Greer’s insights exposed how today’s union campaigns are more personal, digital, and tactical than ever before.

The Three Stages of Unionization

Greer broke down the union process into three phases:

Organizing – Where it all begins. Union professionals (yes, professionals) are hired to befriend your employees, learn company dynamics, and build trust behind the scenes.

Negotiation – If a vote passes, unions negotiate the first contract. Depending on leverage, this process can drag on or accelerate.

Contract or Dispute – Eventually, there’s either a signed agreement or a standoff.

Professional Friends and Embedded Organizers

“Unions don’t just send anyone, they send someone who fits,” Greer explained. Race, language, and culture matter. A company with mostly Hispanic workers will attract Spanish-speaking organizers with shared cultural roots. These are not random hires, they’re embedded, trained insiders.

Some embed themselves so deeply they become babysitters, churchgoers, and confidants before ever mentioning the word “union.”

From Reddit to Real Life

Social media has become a goldmine for organizers. Slack, Reddit, Instagram—they’re all scanned for complaints and discontent.

“Employees overshare,” Greer said. “Unions are listening.”

Once they spot an opening, today’s organizers can digitally infiltrate a company in days, not months.

Salting: The Double Agent Playbook

One of the most shocking tactics? Salting. It’s when a union trains someone to get hired at your company just to organize from the inside. They appear average, fly under the radar, and take notes on management.

“They don’t aim to be your next VP,” Greer said. “They aim to blend in, gain access, and report everything back to the union.”

Churching and Community Infiltration

Some organizers even infiltrate churches. In highly religious communities, they attend services, meet with pastors, and donate large sums, sometimes thousands of dollars, to gain trust. Once accepted, they use those relationships to learn everything about the people in your workforce.

A well-trained union organizer can infiltrate your company in a month—or less.

What You Can’t Say—And What It Costs

Greer outlined the “TIPS” acronym to help leaders avoid illegal behavior:

Threats – Interrogation – Promises – Surveillance

Violating these can lead to mandatory bargaining orders, where the company is forced to recognize and negotiate with the union, even if there wasn’t a vote.

Pizza Doesn’t Fix Everything

Acknowledge the hard work. Offer extra time off. Raise wages where possible. And above all, be present.

“Your people know if you’re not really there,” he warned.

Final Advice

Employees want to be seen, respected, and valued. They’re not just looking for a raise, they’re looking for meaning, inclusion, and leadership.

“Use the union’s tools before the union gets there,” Greer advised. “Advocate. Listen. Connect.”

Because if you don’t? Someone else will.

Here are the five levels of the pyramid that make up The Employee Hierarchy of Needs.

1. The Paycheck: At the base of the pyramid is an employee’s primary need: money. Money is generally the reason people go to work. Without money, employees can’t pay their rent or mortgage, put food on the dinner table, send their kids to college, and more. And often, money is just part of the compensation. Other benefits include insurance, retirement contributions, and other less tangible, yet still important, reasons related to the paycheck.

2. Alignment with Beliefs and Vision (The Culture): While money may be a basic need, the culture of the organization must meet the employee’s needs and what they value. This motivates them to come to work and helps keep them employed with you. Employees want to feel excited about going to work.

3. Uniqueness: This is often an overlooked opportunity. One way to get more engagement and productivity out of employees is to recognize and appreciate their individuality and make it part of their jobs. For example, an employee may speak a foreign language. If one of your customers speaks the same language, doesn’t it make sense to let that employee talk to the customer? Whatever skill or talent the employee has, find a way to incorporate it into their job, even if just for a small percentage of the time.

4. Growth Opportunities: Most employees want to advance their careers. They want to know there will be opportunities to grow, learn, and feel better about themselves. Early in the interview process, there should be discussions about opportunities to grow.

5. Fulfillment: At the tip of the pyramid model is fulfillment. When employees are fulfilled, it usually means they love their job, who they work with, and even their boss. This corresponds to Emotional Connection on the Customer Hierarchy of Needs. Other words to describe fulfillment include satisfaction, happiness, and completeness – all emotions that potentially drive employee loyalty.

Nobody wants to work in a place that doesn’t emotionally fulfill them. Employees may tolerate a work environment that doesn’t meet their needs beyond a paycheck, but there is little incentive to stay when something better comes along. If you want to create a powerful and positive customer experience, work on the employee experience. Remember, what’s happening inside the organization with employees is felt on the outside by the customer.

When workplace tension rises, many leaders duck, dodge, or deflect. But Marlene Chism, author of From Conflict to Courage, says it’s not the disagreement that wrecks relationships—it’s the disrespect that often follows. Her central message? Conflict isn’t the problem. Mismanaging it is.

Chism defines conflict as “opposing drives, desires, and demands.” That framing shifts it from a threat to an opportunity for curiosity. When leaders get curious instead of combative, they access what she calls their “executive function”: the part of the brain that leads with logic instead of reacting from emotion.

Discomfort Brings Growth

Many leaders avoid conflict because it feels uncomfortable. But Chism insists that emotional discomfort is part of leadership growth. In her view, aggressive behavior can be a mask for avoiding vulnerability. “Aggression is a form of avoidance,” she explains. “You’re avoiding intimacy. You’re avoiding being wrong.”

Her advice? Notice the discomfort. Don’t suppress it or lash out. Sit with it, breathe through it, and stay in the conversation. That shift builds what she calls “conflict capacity”: the ability to stay present, regulate your emotions, and engage productively.

Conversations That Should Have Happened

Chism says major workplace blowups often trace back to one root cause: a conversation that never happened. She sees a recurring pattern in organizations: leaders avoid direct conversations, escalate issues up or down the chain, and eventually implement a reorganization to sidestep the conflict.

She likens this to “clipping the bloom off a dandelion and thinking the weed is gone.” The root problem stays alive, just relocated.

Appeasement and Avoidance: Hidden Costs

Avoidance is easy to spot. Appeasement is sneakier. Leaders who appease may think they’re being nice or supportive. But they’re still avoiding tough truths. Chism offers an example: an employee suggests an idea. Instead of giving honest feedback, the leader says, “Great idea, maybe next meeting,” and then forgets about it.

That, she says, undermines trust and motivation. Instead, leaders should explain why the idea won’t work right now and encourage the employee to keep bringing ideas. This way, leaders maintain honesty without discouraging innovation.

Change Resistance Isn’t What You Think

Chism challenges the belief that people resist change. Instead, she says, they resist lack of autonomy and uncertainty. By increasing clarity and giving people more choice, leaders can reduce drama during change initiatives.

The Four Quadrants of Change

1. Wanted and expected
2. Wanted but not expected
3. Not wanted and not expected
4. Not wanted but expected

Each quadrant comes with its own emotional challenges. Leaders who recognize this can tailor their communication accordingly.

Trust Is Built Through Congruence

For Chism, trust isn’t just about competence. It’s also about character. “If out of your mouth comes one thing, but your behavior says something else, your team won’t feel safe,” she explains.

Chism speaks from experience. She worked on a factory floor for over two decades. She’s seen how front-line employees, when disengaged or disrespected, can quietly sabotage productivity. Conversely, when they feel seen and respected, their commitment and contributions increase.

Clarity Over Certainty

In both personal and professional decisions, Chism draws a sharp line between clarity and certainty. “Clarity is a feeling of peace,” she says. It’s not about being 100% sure. It’s about understanding what matters most, what your boundaries are, and what you’re willing to accept or not.

She gives a personal example from a family holiday, where she had to choose between inviting everyone or playing emotional politics to keep the peace. She chose clarity, invited everyone, and let others decide for themselves. That moment shaped how she views leadership decisions, too.

Ask “Would You Be Willing…”

Chism emphasizes the power of the question: “Would you be willing…”

This approach works in leadership conversations, especially with employees who seem resistant. It flips the dynamic. Instead of pushing, it invites. If the leader isn’t willing to re-engage, they might be resisting too. “The willingness is the fulcrum point of change,” she says.

Practice First, Then Perform

Too many leaders wing it in hard conversations. Chism says that’s a mistake. She teaches a structured method that includes identifying the situation, outcome, and obstacle—then setting a clear intention.

“The one with clarity navigates the ship,” she explains. Preparation reduces the chance of getting emotionally hijacked. With practice, this clarity becomes second nature.

Summary

Marlene Chism’s insights provide leaders with practical tools to transform workplace tension into growth. Her key message: conflict, handled properly, can sharpen leadership and strengthen teams. Leaders should focus on building “conflict capacity,” learning to manage emotional discomfort, and engaging with clarity and curiosity. Avoidance, appeasement, and aggression often create more problems than they solve. Through preparation, honest dialogue, and a willingness to stay in difficult conversations, leaders can build trust, reduce resistance, and foster a culture of responsibility and respect.

What if you could raise your prices, attract better customers, and generate greater profits with fewer sales? Dale Furtwengler says you can. As the author of Pricing for Profit, he’s helped countless entrepreneurs escape the race to the bottom by shifting their mindset from price to value.

In a recent interview on The Mason Duchatschek Show podcast, Dale explained how businesses can differentiate themselves, calculate their worth, and design pricing strategies that benefit both buyer and seller.

Lead With Value, Not Cost

Dale started with a simple truth: price should reflect value, not just cost. In business-to-business (B2B) sales, this means walking the buyer through a calculation of the real value they’ll gain.

If your training program helps a client reduce absenteeism by eliminating morale problems and saves them $125,000 a year, you’re no longer offering a training session. You’re delivering a six-figure solution.

By involving the client in the value calculation, Dale explained, “They believe the value more because they helped calculate it.”

Relational Pricing for Consumers

In business-to-consumer (B2C) settings, Dale suggested using relational pricing—comparing your product’s perceived value to industries serving similar markets.

For example, a chocolatier positioning premium chocolates could use retail apparel tiers (Walmart to Nordstrom) to identify a pricing strategy. “If your chocolate is like JCPenney quality, it shouldn’t be priced like Walmart.”

The point? Consumers use mental anchors from other markets. Match your price to the value you’re delivering relative to their perceptions.

Stop Competing on Price

Most companies avoid premium pricing out of fear. They think price is the number one factor in buying decisions. However, Dale cited research showing that only 14% of consumers put price first. That means 86% prioritize other factors: quality, service, timeliness, and integrity.

Instead of battling for the lowest bid, Dale urged business owners to aim for the vertical part of the price elasticity curve, where customers value your uniqueness so much that they are willing to pay your price in good times and bad.

“You want to be the only source,” Dale says. “When what you offer is distinctive, price becomes irrelevant.”

Raise Prices. Every Year.

One of the most common mistakes Dale sees? Failing to raise prices annually.

“If you lose customers, it’ll be the least loyal, most price-sensitive customers you have. And you’ll replace them with people who actually value what you offer.”

When faced with a 3% to 5% price increase, customers rarely shop your offer. The cost of finding another vendor outweighs the price increase. Wait a few years and hit them with a double-digit increase, and they will shop for an alternative.

A 3% to 5% increase not only improves your margins—it more than offsets inflation in most years, affording your company increased purchasing power.

Differentiate or Disappear

So, how do you stand out?

Solve a problem others overlook. Communicate that clearly—especially in your tagline.

Use psychographic profiling to attract ideal customers.

Unlike demographics, psychographics focus on shared values, behaviors, and mindsets. Dale walks clients through a three-part analysis:

1. Why did you create your offering?
2. Who’s your most enjoyable client?
3. Who’s your most profitable?

The overlapping answers to these three questions will become your brand’s north star—and your most powerful differentiator.

Then, use those traits in your marketing and sales calls. Dale shared how some prospects even ask, “Do I qualify?” This flips the dynamic of the sales call and builds trust instantly.

Loyalty, Psychology, and Premium Positioning

Customers who share your values are more loyal and less price-sensitive. Dale recounted times when clients said, “There’s nothing to discuss. What do you want?” when he brought up a rate increase.

He also emphasized a core truth: customers expect pricing to reflect value. If you underprice a premium offering, they’ll get confused or suspicious.

“When buyers are confused, they always revert to price.”

Avoid Price Wars at All Costs

To avoid price wars, get out of the commodity trap. Be so uniquely valuable that you’re on the vertical portion of the price elasticity curve—where there’s no direct competitor.

Trying to hold competitors back by slashing prices is short-sighted. Instead, stay focused on delivering distinct results that can’t be easily replicated.

Final Thought

If your pricing doesn’t match your value, it won’t just hurt profits—it’ll confuse your market and attract the wrong buyers. Dale Furtwengler made it clear: premium pricing isn’t about greed. It’s about congruence, clarity, confidence, and producing the best solution for your customers and prospects.

You’re not charging more just because you can. You’re charging more because what you offer is worth it.

Theresa Bassett, CEO of The Diamond Group, believes small businesses can grow in any economy, if they know how to focus. With over $550 million in client transaction experience, she’s seen what works and what doesn’t. What is her advice?

Create Your Own Economy

“Racehorses wear blinders for a reason,” says Bassett. “They run faster when they’re focused.” She applies the same principle to business owners overwhelmed by market uncertainty. Instead of reacting to fear or distraction, she urges leaders to double down on the value they deliver and the people they serve.

Zig When Others Zag

Recessions, she says, are ripe with opportunity. “When everyone else pulls back, that’s your chance to push forward.” Bassett encourages businesses to increase sales and marketing investments, not cut them, during downturns. “The cost of inaction is often far higher than the cost of action,” she explains. “And the marketplace is quieter, so your voice stands out more.”

Be Real, Not Robotic

One of the biggest mistakes she sees in business is playing it too safe. “Sterile, professional messaging is forgettable,” Bassett says. “People do business with people.” She advises clients to show personality, be human, and build trust with authentic content.

For example, even imperfect video can outperform polished silence. “It’s often risky to play it safe,” she warns.

The Bottleneck Might Be You

When it comes to learning important new things outside of your comfort zone, “You have to be willing to be bad long enough to get good.”

Bassett sees a common pattern in companies stuck just below the seven-figure mark: the founder becomes the bottleneck. “They rely on their own charisma or network for growth,” she explains. “But to scale, they need systems that work without them.”

That shift involves leaning into technology, standardizing sales and marketing, and letting go of perfectionism. “Progress equals happiness,” she says, encouraging leaders to empower their teams with clear tracks for development.

Churn Kills Culture

Hiring in a hurry leads to regret. “You can’t build a great culture if your people are gone in 30 days,” she notes. Her advice? Hire slow, fire fast, and make it hard to get through the door.

Once someone’s in, guide them with growth tracks, trails of progress that turn roles into careers. “Treat your people like internal clients,” Bassett says. “They’re the gold.”

The Hidden Cost of Lowering Your Hiring Standards

Imagine planning a company picnic. You carefully choose the location, the food, the music—everything is set for a great experience. Now picture inviting ants, not just a few, but an entire colony.

Before long, they’ve taken over the tables, ruined the food, and driven your guests away. The event is a disaster. That’s exactly what happens when businesses lower their hiring standards.

Desperate to fill open positions, some employers begin to relax key screening steps—perhaps they skip drug testing, loosen background checks, or ignore red flags because “we just need people.” In doing so, they inadvertently roll out the welcome mat for individuals who couldn’t get hired anywhere else—for good reason.

These employees often bring more than just baggage; they bring friends, bad habits, and cultural contamination. What started as a quick fix to fill roles becomes a long-term crisis. Good employees begin to leave, morale plummets, and productivity suffers. The wrong hires don’t just underperform—they repel the right ones.

Recovery isn’t cheap. It takes time, money, and leadership to clean up the mess and rebuild a strong, reliable workforce. And while prevention may not be glamorous, it’s a far better alternative than damage control.

Bottom line: Don’t invite ants to your picnic. Protect your culture, your reputation, and your future by refusing to compromise on hiring standards. You’ll thank yourself later.

What if every employee acted like an owner? What would happen to sales, innovation, and customer service?

I walked into a bike shop 15 minutes before closing. A regular employee might’ve sent me away or told me they were about to close.

The owner stayed 45 minutes late and made a few thousand dollars selling me a new road bike. I never felt rushed, and I’ve been a loyal customer for over 20 years. I’ve sent him countless referrals too.

What if all your employees cared like that?

Profit sharing sounds great in theory. It promises a way to reward employees, increase engagement, and improve company performance without raising base salaries, adding headcount, or giving away equity.

Many business owners quietly worry it will backfire. That fear isn’t unfounded.

In a recent interview with Rob Gallaher, author of Profit Sharing: The Power of Shared Success, I learned how profit sharing—when designed poorly—can become a costly mess. I also learned that when done right, it can unlock extraordinary results: higher profits, better teamwork, and a culture of shared accountability.

Gallaher’s experience spans multiple industries, including construction, restoration, and automotive services. He’s seen the full arc—from skeptical beginnings to 300% profit growth in just 18 months, driven almost entirely by a well-structured profit-sharing plan. But that success didn’t happen overnight—or by accident.

What Business Owners Fear (and Why)

Many CEOs and small business owners share the same hesitations about profit sharing:

“What if I give away too much?” “What if people expect it forever, even when profits drop?” “What if it turns into entitlement rather than motivation?”

Gallaher heard those concerns, because he had them himself. In one business, he found himself micromanaging trivial decisions, down to which toilet paper to buy, because employees didn’t care about costs. They weren’t careless; they were disconnected. It wasn’t until he linked their decisions to shared outcomes that behavior changed. And with that change came margin growth.

Another common fear is volatility. In one of his businesses, Gallaher recalled a young team member who, after a few months of impressive bonus checks, went out and bought a Corvette. When seasonal slowdowns hit and the profit-sharing payments dipped, the employee panicked. That moment led Gallaher to incorporate financial literacy into onboarding, teaching employees how to budget around variable income and think long-term. It didn’t just help them manage money better; it stabilized morale when payouts temporarily dipped.

There’s also the fear of entitlement. Gallaher addressed that by ensuring profit sharing was clearly positioned as a bonus for performance, not a replacement for a paycheck. Base pay stayed competitive, but the message was consistent: “When we all win, we all share.” That distinction helped eliminate resentment and prevented employees from viewing the bonus as a guaranteed entitlement.

Getting Real Impact from Profit Sharing

One of the most practical takeaways from our conversation was how Gallaher implemented profit sharing in a way that actually worked. It wasn’t theoretical or philosophical. It was tactical and replicable.

He began with payout timing. While many companies issue bonuses quarterly, Gallaher found that this delay created a disconnect. Employees couldn’t tie their daily actions to a reward that came months later. Switching to monthly payouts solved the problem. The shorter cycle kept performance and financial impact top of mind, month after month.

Next, he looked at the size of the bonus. In early experiments, Gallaher distributed small checks, around $250. However, they failed to make a significant impact. Employees appreciated the gesture, but it wasn’t enough to change behavior. Once he raised the average to closer to $1,000 per month, people began to take notice. These larger amounts had real value. They could cover a car payment, contribute to savings, or make a tangible difference in someone’s household. When bonuses mattered, performance followed.

He also made sure every payout was tied to clear, trackable goals. Whether it was job-level profit, gross margins, or service referrals across departments, the metrics were visible, measurable, and directly impacted by the team’s daily choices.

That visibility drove collaboration. Field teams took better care of equipment, knowing maintenance delays cost everyone. People stopped hoarding information and started solving problems together. The shared incentive turned individual performers into team players.

Another key lesson was to start small and scale intentionally. Gallaher piloted the model in one part of the business, made adjustments based on feedback, and gradually expanded it. By refining the system before rolling it out company-wide, he avoided costly mistakes and built credibility with his teams.

But perhaps the most important factor in long-term success was clarity and consistency. The profit-sharing model wasn’t a moving target. The rules didn’t change month to month. Everyone knew how the bonus pool was calculated and what they needed to do to earn it. That transparency built trust. When performance dipped, there were no surprises. When it improved, teams celebrated together.

And yes, profit improved. But more importantly, so did decision-making, morale, and retention.

A Cultural Strategy Masquerading as Compensation

What Gallaher demonstrated—and what stuck with me most—is that profit sharing is far more than a compensation model. Done right, it becomes a culture-building tool. It aligns people’s incentives, encourages smarter decisions, and transforms “my job” thinking into “our business” thinking.

It also frees up leadership from micromanaging. When employees are invested in outcomes, they don’t need constant supervision. They manage themselves—and each other—with a shared sense of ownership. That kind of shift is hard to measure on a spreadsheet, but you feel it in every meeting, every job site, and every customer interaction.

For companies wrestling with disengagement, turnover, or underperformance, profit sharing might sound risky. But the bigger risk may be letting those issues fester while waiting for a “perfect” solution.

You don’t need to overhaul your entire comp structure overnight. You just need to start with the right mindset: treat employees like partners, tie rewards to results, and build a structure that encourages people to care as much as you do.

Say the word “salesperson,” and many people picture pushy pitches or pressure tactics. But Dr. Don Barden frames sales as a deeply honorable and transformative force. In his view, sales is the act of moving someone ethically from a current state to a better one, with service at the center.

He emphasizes that effective leadership is inherently about selling—not products, but a vision of what could be. Leaders must inspire belief, and that requires persuasion rooted in purpose.

“The best salesperson in any organization is the leader,” Barden says. “They’re selling where the organization is going and why it matters.”

Understanding vs. Knowing: The Secret to Expanding Impact

In his research, Barden observed that the top 1% of performers don’t just execute tasks—they comprehend the deeper drivers behind them. This understanding allows them to adapt to different people, situations, and obstacles with precision.

He makes a crucial distinction between knowing and understanding. Knowing is about remembering facts, while understanding is about insight, timing, and application.

For example, a college student can gain knowledge, recall a fact, and pass a test. It proves they know something—and that’s fine.

However, elite leaders with real-world experience look beyond the surface. They understand various options and ways to apply what they know. This gives them the ability to adjust and scale their work effectively.

The Social Buyers Pyramid: Targeted Communication

Barden developed a model he calls the Social Buyers Pyramid based on behavioral economic data. It’s a practical tool for understanding how different people make decisions, so leaders can adapt their approach to influencing both external customers and internal customers (employees) accordingly.

Base Level – Price-Oriented: These customers make decisions primarily based on cost. They focus on immediate needs and value. Barden notes that this group represents a large portion of the population and is most influenced by affordability and functionality.

Middle Tier – Status-Driven: These individuals care deeply about how decisions reflect on them. They’re influenced by brand, prestige, and how choices position them among peers. Many mid-level managers and professionals fall into this group.

Top Tier – ROI Minded: Executive-level leaders think in terms of long-term impact and return on investment. They evaluate decisions by asking, “Is this the best use of my time and capital?” Their outlook is strategic and often involves delegation and alignment with big-picture goals.

Barden stresses that elite performers tailor their communication depending on which group they’re addressing. They don’t use a one-size-fits-all message. They speak directly to each audience’s decision-making lens.

Emotions Drive Decisions: The 85/15 Rule

Barden’s research also shows that 85% of decision-making is emotional, and only 15% is logical. This isn’t about irrationality—it’s about how the human brain is wired. People first decide based on how they feel, then justify those decisions with logic.

While many professionals focus on charts, spreadsheets, and presentations, what actually tips the scales is emotional connection. Elite leaders gain greater influence by making others feel understood, safe, and empowered.

One of Barden’s favorite sayings in this area: People remember a small fraction of what you say, but they remember how you made them feel. Elite leaders harness this insight by keeping communication clear, concise, and emotionally resonant.

What Elite Leaders Do Differently

Barden’s data reveals that elite performers share certain traits and habits.

First, they lead from the perspective of the other person. Rather than applying the Golden Rule—treat others as you want to be treated—they live by what Barden calls the Platinum Rule: Treat others the way they want to be treated.

This mindset leads to better decisions, deeper trust, and more authentic team engagement.

Second, they keep their communication focused. They rarely make more than three main points, knowing that the human brain retains information best in patterns of three.

Finally, elite leaders understand that how they show up matters. They’re intentional about their presence, tone, and timing. Whether walking into a boardroom or joining a Zoom call, they speak and act with clarity and purpose.

Dr. Don Barden’s research reveals powerful insights into how the top 1% of leaders and influencers operate. By understanding the emotional drivers behind decision-making, tailoring communication to different thinking styles, and practicing ethical influence, elite leaders significantly increase their impact.

Whether you’re a seasoned executive or a rising professional, these concepts offer a competitive edge in how you lead, communicate, and make decisions in any environment.

In an era where skilled labor shortages and rapid turnover threaten productivity, a quiet revolution is taking place on factory floors and within field service teams. It doesn’t involve new equipment or increased headcount. It involves voice.

Voice-based artificial intelligence (AI), built for real-time support in hands-free environments, is emerging as a powerful tool to tackle one of the most underestimated business threats: the loss of institutional knowledge.

Derek Crager, a systems thinker with a background in industrial training and AI design, has been studying how knowledge gaps, not just labor shortages, drive operational downtime. Drawing from his experience leading training programs at Amazon, Crager points to a widespread issue in industrial workplaces:

“We’ve lived with the skilled trade shortage so long it’s become invisible. Companies don’t realize how often new employees are left to figure things out on their own.”

Downtime and the Knowledge Gap

When veteran workers leave, they often take undocumented knowledge with them. This includes not only technical know-how but also the contextual insights and practical solutions developed over years on the job. Without mechanisms to capture and distribute that expertise, organizations struggle to onboard new employees efficiently or resolve issues quickly, resulting in costly downtime.

The problem isn’t always the work itself. Often, it’s the absence of someone who knows how to solve a familiar problem in a specific environment. And when that “go-to” person is gone, everything slows down.

The Shift to Voice-Based Learning

Unlike traditional training systems that rely on manuals, apps, or video modules, voice-based AI enables real-time conversations between frontline workers and a system trained on subject-matter expertise. It reduces friction by eliminating the need for logins, screens, or devices. In practice, workers can interact with voice-guided instructions while keeping their hands free to perform tasks.

The interface is intuitive because it mirrors something humans have done for tens of thousands of years: speak and listen. This design principle is especially valuable in industrial settings, where time, mobility, and safety are crucial.

But the impact goes beyond simplicity. Because the AI listens, learns, and responds to questions, it can adapt to common patterns, fill gaps in training, and reduce inconsistencies across shifts or locations. In other words, the knowledge doesn’t just get preserved. It gets distributed and scaled.

Rethinking Onboarding

One of the most practical applications of voice AI is in onboarding. Many companies still rely on shadowing or informal mentoring, which often leaves gaps in understanding. With a conversational system, new employees receive consistent guidance and can ask follow-up questions as needed. It also creates a feedback loop that surfaces the questions leadership didn’t know needed answering.

This model ensures a baseline of consistency, helps new hires feel more confident, and removes the ambiguity that leads to mistakes. It also provides a “single source of truth”—a centralized way to update procedures without having to revise documents across departments or facilities.

The Human Factor

Adopting AI often raises concerns, particularly among experienced employees who see knowledge capture as a step toward making them replaceable. Crager argues that this concern, while valid, is based on a misunderstanding of the technology’s purpose.

“AI isn’t here to replace people. It’s here to preserve what they know, make it accessible, and increase everyone’s value,” he says. “If anything, it gives experienced workers the ability to multiply their impact.”

The comparison is simple: it’s the difference between a single expert helping one person at a time versus a scalable system that shares their expertise with everyone—even long after they’re gone.

Lessons from the Internet Era

To understand where voice AI might be going, it helps to look back. When the internet emerged in the late 1980s, many companies hesitated. By the time mobile phones integrated internet access in the early 2000s, those who had waited were playing catch-up—or disappearing altogether.

Today’s shift toward voice-based AI in workforce support may follow a similar pattern. Some businesses will wait until the technology is fully mainstream. Others will experiment early—not out of hype, but out of necessity—to retain knowledge, reduce training costs, and increase workforce autonomy.

Moving Forward with Purpose

For leaders considering how to prepare, the advice is clear: don’t start with the technology. Start with the problem.

What knowledge is at risk? What tasks are regularly delayed because someone “knows how to do it” but isn’t available? What would it mean to your operation if new employees could ask for help and get it instantly, without disrupting others?

Voice-based AI isn’t a silver bullet. However, for organizations that heavily depend on skilled labor and institutional memory, it provides a practical way to preserve and extend the expertise that drives performance.

The companies that thrive in this transition won’t be the ones racing to adopt new tools. They’ll be the ones designing systems with their people, and their practical needs, in mind.

In most companies, scale is treated like a strategy, something to be mapped, funded, and executed. But what if the real determinant of scalable growth has less to do with systems and more to do with culture?

That’s the premise that emerged during my conversation with Tullio Siragusa, executive advisor, leadership coach, and author of Unlocking Your Empire, The Real You, and other books focused on the intersection of human behavior and organizational performance. Siragusa’s perspective reframes many of the assumptions business owners and executives make when trying to grow. What he reveals isn’t just how to scale, but why so many companies fail to.

The Culture Bottleneck: Why Some Companies Aren’t Ready to Grow

Siragusa doesn’t mince words when identifying what holds companies back. According to him, the first red flag is a leadership model built on bottlenecks. If too many decisions, approvals, or problems flow through a small group of people—or worse, a single individual—the company may be growing in revenue, but it’s not scalable in function.

This is where many founders and senior leaders stall: their personal success, intelligence, and problem-solving ability become the very constraint that slows the organization down. Instead of empowering others to lead, they unknowingly create a culture of dependency. And no matter how strong your strategy or product, if people are always looking for permission or direction, you’ve built fragility into your growth plan.

Siragusa argues that truly scalable organizations require a shift from top-down command to self-directed execution. That means distributing authority, creating systems for mutual accountability, and fostering a culture where leadership is a shared responsibility, not a title.

Self-Directed Teams and the Death of Micromanagement

In scalable cultures, performance doesn’t hinge on the presence of the CEO. Teams operate with clarity and autonomy. They’re aligned by shared agreements, not micromanaged tasks. This isn’t an abstract theory. It’s a tangible alternative to command-and-control systems that create inefficiency and burnout.

Siragusa advocates for replacing rigid policies with “relational agreements” that are co-created expectations between team members and leaders that are built on mutual respect, psychological safety, and clearly defined outcomes. It’s how high-functioning teams stay aligned and engaged, especially in decentralized or hybrid work environments.

When this cultural foundation is in place, leaders can step back without the organization falling apart. And as Siragusa points out, this doesn’t mean leaders become passive. It means they evolve from managers to architects, building the systems, relationships, and clarity that allow others to thrive.

People Want More Than Pay. They Want Purpose and Impact

Siragusa’s insights extend beyond operational models into something deeper: why people choose to stay, engage, and give their best. In his view, most companies underestimate just how much people crave meaning in their work.

Work should be about more than superficial mission statements. It should be about personal alignment with the impact people are creating. When employees feel like their work contributes to something larger, they’re more likely to self-correct, collaborate, and innovate. It’s not just about becoming more productive. It’s about becoming more human in the process.

That’s why scalable cultures are also transformational cultures. They don’t just extract value from employees. They help employees become more of who they are. Growth and contribution go hand in hand.

The Fear of AI and Why It’s Misguided

Many leaders today are privately anxious about AI. Will it replace people? Will it disrupt workflows? Will it erode trust?

Siragusa has a different take. He believes AI should be welcomed into company cultures, not as a threat to human value, but as a tool that amplifies it. In his view, the future belongs to organizations that integrate AI not just for efficiency, but as a way to unlock deeper human potential.

By offloading repetitive or administrative tasks, AI gives people more space to think critically, collaborate creatively, and focus on meaningful work. It doesn’t replace purpose. It makes room for it.

But for this integration to succeed, the company’s culture must be strong. If fear and control define the environment, AI will be seen as a weapon. If trust and transparency define the environment, AI becomes an accelerator.

Culture That Scales Without Control

Siragusa’s core message is clear: if you want to scale, start with culture. Culture should not be an afterthought or HR initiative, but an operating system of your business. It a system where people lead themselves and decisions are shared. Technology supports, not replaces. Meaning isn’t a luxury. It’s the norm.

Scalable growth isn’t about doing more. It’s about enabling more. As a CEO, business owner, or HR executive, your job is not to be the smartest person in the room, it’s to build the kind of room where everyone can lead, contribute, and evolve.

Culture isn’t something you have. It’s something you design on purpose, or by default. Choose wisely.