As a former Chief People Officer, I learned how to align strategy and metrics in a fast-moving, results-driven environment. Now, I’m bringing that experience into a “do-it-with-you” format—designed to help HR leaders sharpen their strategy, elevate their expertise, and build a people foundation that’s measurable and truly business-critical.

I was never a yes-person. During my annual review, my boss once shared: “You need to work on your suck-up skills.”

Truth is a critical core value for me, though earlier in my career, my delivery could have used a lot of polish.

For example, I shouldn't have told the CFO that he was the captain of THIS ship of fools while he protected a mediocre leader who had hired her brother into her chain of command and lied to us both for months.

Short words make meaning.
Small moments with big impact
Shape our cultures too.

Haiku forces you to choose what matters and demands clarity. Simple, efficient, to the point. This same approach is a powerful way to shape culture. Most companies think culture is built through strategy, systems, leaders, incentives, decisions, you know… all the visible, expensive solutions people and businesses choose every day.

Employees are staying, which shouldn’t be confused with being committed.

The latest research shows something heavier happening inside organizations, more U.S. workers are struggling than thriving. The Life Evaluation Index measures how people feel about life now and how they expect it to look five years from now.

Our workforce isn’t just tired, it is less hopeful about the future. That should get every leader’s attention.

Most people think mentorship is about advice. It’s not. Mentors don’t make your path easier. They can make it move faster and help you recover smarter when it doesn’t work.

I didn’t understand that early in my career.

What changed everything for me was someone seeing potential I didn’t recognize and stretching me long before I felt ready (which I may have never been ready).

Careers are deeply personal and a direct reflection of the choices you make and the reasons you make them.

Yet most people spend more time planning a vacation each year than they spend planning their careers.

If that's true, it's no wonder so many of us feel like our careers "just happened" rather than being intentionally designed.

Job cuts used to be bad news. Now? They're a badge of honor.

Some CEOs are proudly flaunting layoffs like they’re innovation metrics: proof they’re “serious” about AI, efficiency, and transformation.

But here’s the thing: Cutting headcount ≠ progress. Fewer people ≠ better performance. And AI isn’t a strategy, it’s a tool.

If your culture celebrates job cuts as success, what message does that send to the people still showing up?

Building your culture is like building your reputation, it’s created slowly through many big and small acts. And it’s fragile, can be broken in a second, especially by the CEO.

Recently, a CEO was displayed for a few seconds on a concert kiss cam, holding and hugging his Head of HR. Within days, he resigned as the video went viral. It was a scandal and a collapse of trust at the highest level.

When the CEO and Head of HR, the very people entrusted to uphold the culture, ignore the expectations they’ve set for everyone else, it can create confusion, fear, and silence.

Monday mornings have long been the villain of the workweek, but recently, something new has entered the scene: Bare Minimum Mondays. It’s exactly what it sounds like: employees coast through the first day of the week, doing only what’s necessary to get by, easing into productivity with minimal effort. It’s the opposite of the traditional "hit the ground running" mentality. And honestly, it sounds tempting, right?

The latest workplace trend? Juggling. Not priorities. Not meetings. Jobs.

Welcome to the world of polywork. A trend accelerating right alongside AI. Polywork, or overemployment, happens when professionals secretly hold down multiple remote roles at the same time. It's a workplace circus act, and unless your culture is rock solid, your business might be just another gig that they juggle on their calendar.