Activate Change in 2026: Preparing Leaders to Drive Results Through Culture

Hello, and welcome everyone, to today's live
program with Achieve Engagement. Thank you so much for joining.
It warms my heart that you're taking time out of your busy schedules to sharpen
your craft and arm yourself with new strategies, new frameworks, and best
practices that can help lead to a better world of work.
And that's what we're all about at Achieve Engagement.
It's about unpacking these topics, unpacking these different types of
scenarios and real-world situations that we're entering into,
especially as we're right around the corner, going into
2026, and arming ourselves with new
ideas, new perspectives, new ways of approaching some of these
challenges. And we love doing that as a community.
So, I love all the activity that's already happening in the chat.
I see people calling in from Lima, Peru, Robert, welcome.
That is awesome. Lima's, uh, one of my favorite places.
Uh, was there a long time ago. Alexandra in Boston.
Bonnie in St. Petersburg. I lived there as well for a short amount of
time. Crystal, hello from Texas. We got
Arizona, Blair, welcome. Sacramento.
Iowa. Phoenix. South Carolina. St.
Louis, John, welcome in here. Debra from San
Francisco.
Estates Park, Colorado. I'm in Denver, Colorado right
now. And I think one of the powerful aspects of these live
programs is two-part. One, we bring in different types of
thought leaders, practitioners, researchers, people from the field who are doing
this work at the highest level, that you can access and almost
get free strategy and coaching from for the next hour.
So, that's one aspect of today that I'm really excited about.
On the other end, we also have this like peer-to-peer
community learning side of it. This is all of you joining today
from your own perspectives, your own experiences, sharing how you've
approached some of these things. So, as we're going through today's
program, that's something I really encourage you to tap into, is
who is, uh, a connection that you can make from today's program?
But also, as we're unpacking some of these topics, what are
certain situations that you're dealing with or certain questions that you have?
We're gonna be able to answer those throughout the program as well as at the end.
And then on top of that, I would love if you also provided your own
ideas and strategies and resources.
So, if there's certain things that you've done within your company that we can
learn from, I mean, that's invaluable for some of your peers.
So, provide that. Engage with the chat. Engage with each other.
Let's make this a really powerful learning experience for the next 60
minutes together. Uh, that being said, I'm really
excited for this topic because 2026 is right around the
corner, and I think it's safe to assume that
we're probably gonna have to navigate some changes.
(laughs) There's probably new strategic directions, new initiatives.
There's also the changing environment around us.
That puts a lot of pressure on us as people leaders, but that also puts even more
pressure on the leaders within their respective departments and
teams. So, how do we prepare leaders to drive
results when we're going through change?
Whether that's intentionally by us, we're driving that change because we're
changing the ways that we're competing or the type of strategy we're
going, or we're bringing to life new initiatives or new products.
Those are all intentional changes that our leaders have to navigate.
On the other end, the economy, the environment, society.
There's all these kind of disruptors that are causing change and
disruption within our companies that we also have to navigate all the
time. And then both of those happening together, that's a little bit
compounded, right? So, I really encourage you to kind of think about like
what change are you experiencing right now, and how might we start
to support and prepare our leaders so that we can elevate our
impact and achieve what we're going for into this next year?
So, that being said, if you haven't put in the chat
already, let's give a warm welcome to my
co-host, our subject matter expert, uh, Matson
Newell, Vice President, Global Delivery and Channel Partnerships at Culture
Partners. Culture Partners has been an amazing partner of ours doing this work at a
very high level. And you've probably seen him in the past at a few programs with
us, so we're very lucky to have him back in action.
So, that being said, let's welcome Matson up. I'm gonna stop sharing here.
Matson, it's great to see you. Uh, excited to learn from you and have you here with
us. Appreciate all the hearts and emojis.
Everyone keep hitting that up for Matson. And, uh, yeah.
That being said, I'll pass it over all to you.
And, uh, the stage is all yours.
Love it. Thank- thank you, Zach. We appreciate you, appreciate the partnership with
Achieve Engagement and the great work you all do.
And, and welcome team, to everyone who's joining around the
world, a great group here. And my goodness, as Zach was going
through and, and as we were preparing for this topic, this webinar,
around 2026, uh, I just think to myself,
"Wow, 2025 flew by." Uh, it went by so quick and here we
are, December 2026, getting for the turn of the year, uh,
excited for what that brings. But, uh, I, I've got to go here to start.
It's that time of year. It's the holiday season.
If everyone go- go to the chat, we saw where you're calling in from.
Uh, but let's, let's now focusing on the holidays, what is your favorite
holiday movie? A favorite holiday movie?
This, uh, you're gonna see some, uh, like movies, I would assume
here. Uh, Tiffany's come, coming great with Elf, The Holiday,
that's a classic. Home Alone. We're seeing a lot of Elf, uh, yep, Home Alone.
Muppet Christmas Carol. That's great. Maybe up for debate.
Hey, Die Hard is a holiday movie. It's a Christmas movie.
Christmas Vacation. It's a won- Man, we got Miracle on 34th Street, Family
Stone, another Die Hard. There you go, Zach.
National Lampoon's Christmas, Christmas Story, Love Actually, Kim, Polar
Express. Love it. Love the variety and the similarities, uh,
we see. I, I'm a sucker for the classic, the black and whites, It's a
Wonderful Life is mine. My family, uh, they know
Christmastime, holiday season comes around, It's a Wonderful Life is gonna be
watched. Although, my 10-year-old son, I do think he has Home Alone on repeat right
now. He loves Home Alone, uh, and we have a lot of fun with
that. And then, oh, Jen, anything on Hallmark.
Yes, my, my daughters, I've got two of them, my wife and daughters, they love those
Hallmark shows. I tell them the rule though is, if I can guess the ending
within five minutes, I can't sit down and watch it.
Uh, so that does weed out some of those.
But, uh, I do love a good Hallmark movie as well.
Um, and so with that, team, appreciate you sharing.
Uh, oh, and Grinch. Do have to go there.
Uh, as we look at the topic today, again, activating change
in 2026. And I love how Zach, uh, teed this up, and also
talked about the, the collaboration here.
If you do have questions or comments, please, uh, add them in the chat, uh,
and we'll keep this organic throughout.
We do have some, uh, time at the end that we'll save for Q&A, uh,
but please feel free to, to weigh in at any time with questions and, and
we'll make sure, uh, we respond to those.
Uh, so with that.Activating Change in 2026: Preparing
Leaders to Drive Results Through Culture.
I do want to, uh, underscore this. Uh, I was just with
a Fortune, uh, 50 organization just last week, uh, spending time on
this very topic, uh, around change and leadership,
emphasizing you do not need a title to be a
leader. And now, I know I'm preaching to the choir here, all of you probably know
that, but you don't- do not need a title to be a leader.
You can lead and help activate change wherever you're at in your organization,
whatever role you have. You can manage up, down, side to side.
And so when we say preparing leaders, it's really about we're preparing those
influencers, those, those people who do want to help lead and
drive change in 2026 all around
results. Now, three fundamentals of unstoppable
organization that we've seen. Some, some perspectives.
So I've been with CulturePartners going on 18 years.
Uh, CulturePartners as a business has, has been around for 35 years.
We've written a number of best-selling books.
This year alone, we've been in 25 different countries working with companies from
small startups to Fortune 50 organizations, helping them deliver
results through activating their culture, and
through part of that, a big part of that, is change activation.
Here's what we found, and here's what the data's telling us.
I'm gonna share with you three numbers, and these numbers tell us a story.
The first number is this. This is 20,000 people, uh, all throughout the
world who have taken, uh, this survey and data, and, and it, it aligns with what
you've seen from HBR, Harvard Business Review, Gallup, and others.
84, 80, and 87.
84% of people are saying that organizational
results are not clearly defined today.
80% are not fully aligned with the company's direction, and then
87% say that their organization lacks
accountability. So we have team members who are saying this.
Now, I always like using sports analogies, simplify this down.
In the sport of, in the United States, they call this soccer.
Everywhere else, they call it football.
Uh, but in soccer or football globally, here's how it
plays out. So those numbers tell us that only two people from a
clarity standpoint know why they're even on the field
kicking the ball and what they're doing.
From an alignment standpoint, only two know which goal is theirs, they,
only two of them know which goal they're shooting at.
And then finally, from an accountability standpoint, only one
person believes that they can actually impact the score.
You think of the, the impact that has on organizations
when you have two, two, and one who actually know direction, know the
goal, and feel they can impact it. Absolutely, that impacts
engagement, that impacts morale, that impacts well-being, and that
impacts results. And so the fundamentals are this.
It's all about those three words, clarity, alignment, and accountability.
And when we see that data, when we see the results, we fall into this trap
where there's good intentions but it's the wrong instincts.
The intention is we focus on more, meaning more
activity. We hire, we fire, we benefit,
we incentivize, we communicate, we do a reorg, we hold meetings and then hold more
meetings to talk about those meetings, and we bring them in.
Good intentions, trying to drive results, wrong
instincts. Meaning, more activity does not lead to better results.
In fact, it leads to burnout. It leads to people micromanaging
others. It leads to silos. It leads to dysfunctional
collaboration, not cross-functional collaboration, which is
needed. And so let's flip the narrative here.
As we look at this, we, we, again, Gallup, in 2024 shared
this. 84% of the value of an S&P 500 company comes
from the talents, skills, knowledge, work ethic,
and health of its employees. So what does that mean?
Well, let's ask a few questions. What if you didn't have to convince middle
managers to complete systems or processes?
What if your business was future-proofed against market shifts, leadership
transitions, et cetera, which we know happens constantly? Zach talked about it.
It's not if change is going to happen in 2026, it's when,
and then the follow-up question is what.
What changes and when? And third, what if an M&A could
accelerate your culture instead of derail it, which we've seen time and time again,
and we were called on constantly to work in mergers and acquisition
environments. And then what if every employee came to work with an
ownership mindset and the impact that would have?
Now, these are very deep, big questions, I know, and
there's no simple response here. There's, there's no, uh, silver
bullet that we can give you and say, "Okay, this is going to fix
it." But we will give you some coaching.
We will give you some insights of what we've seen work before from a model
standpoint, from a principal standpoint, and from an activation and
application standpoint. And it comes back to these three words.
Top performing teams have these three things in common.
Clarity, meaning they know what winning looks like.
Alignment, strong sense of purpose.
And then accountability, which is skin in the game.
So clarity, alignment, accountability.
Now, there's one word on there that's very charged, uh, and
it has a lot of baggage with it. It's accountability.
Let me invite you, if you will, go to the chat, and when you think of the word
accountability, team, what else would you share?
Uh, what, what, what other words come to mind when you think of accountability?
What else comes to mind?
Yeah, Robert, thank you. Punishment, going right there.
What else? When you think of the word accountability, what
other words come to mind? Consequences, transparency,
feedback, love it. Emotional intelligence, transparency,
ownership. Yep, fantastic. Yep,
ownership, honesty, integrity, being count- honorable.
Wendy, I love that word. Delivery, self-awareness.
Um, love this, as we see these coming through.
Now, what's interesting as we see ownership and integrity, opportunity, getting
things done, we love that when it comes to accountability.
But let's get real here and level set.
When does accountability usually come up in an
organization?That's right. It comes up when things go
wrong, when it hits the fan. And we've got the visual image, the
boss storms in the room, says, "Okay, who messed up?" Heads
are going to roll. With that view of accountability in mind, do people
embrace it or run from it? They run from it.
They don't want anything to do with being held accountable.
One of the big parts of our work with organizations is moving from this
negative, punitive, historical view of accountability
that's been so broken for so long to a much more positive,
empowering, actionable definition of
accountability, where people can lean into it and, yes, to use
Wendy's count, they can become count-on-able as they
drive that forward. And we're going to dive a little bit more into just
that. And so
clarity, it's all about prioritization and focus.
Just last week, I mentioned Fortune 50 manufacturing organization that I was
working with, global company, and I came in and, uh, as
we're talking about prioritization and focus, they were telling me, "Yeah,
we've, we've got priorities." I said, "Terrific, what are they?" They then
proceeded to share with me 55 different
priorities. Now, (laughs) you all know what the problem is.
So in their mind it was, hey, here's the 55 priorities.
They even called them the 55 non-negotiables.
Uh, and of course, you all know where we had to go with this. We had to simplify.
If you got 55 priorities, nothing's a priority.
And so we had to simplify it down to truly what are the priorities, what's
the focus you need to have? We got them down to three, the big three
that every single team member in the organization could impact, feel
connected to, and align to. But that prioritization and focus becomes
critical. And so we'd encourage you, team, whatever the priorities and
focus, simplify. Simplify down to drive clarity
so people know what the focus is and what the
priorities, even though the, I use the S there, try to
limit those down. For us, the magic number's three, and the data
shows this. If you look at, uh, human psychological data in the backing,
three is a magic number where people can really grasp onto that.
Anything more than that, it can become diluted focus.
It can become and create a siloed environment in your
organizations. Uh, alignment is all about direction and connection.
This is making sure we're rowing the boat in the right direction and
that we feel connected to whatever our, our key results
are that we're prioritizing, we're focused on, that I can move
in that direction and I feel connected to those results that we're trying to
achieve. The minute I don't feel connected is the minute I put my
hands up and say, "Okay, yeah, I sure hope the sales team goes and hits their
number 'cause I'm just in operations or I'm just in
finance." In fact, I was working large energy company
and, uh, we were working with them, 45 people in the room.
One of their priorities, one of their focus being an energy company, uh,
was safety. Safety was their number one key result that they were trying to
achieve. 45 senior leaders in the room, we asked this
question. Who's accountable for safety?
Who do you think they all turned and looked at?
That's right, uh, uh, the VP of safety.
This poor gentleman probably felt like he was on a, on an island, and luckily
we did not have to say a thing because they all looked at him and then they
realized what they were doing and they laughed and they said, "Okay, yeah." Because
in reality, who's accountable? Who's connected to impacting
safety? It's every single person in that room.
It's every single employee of that company needs to
feel that they can move in the direction of creating a more safe environment
and they feel connected to, uh, the impact they can create as they drive
that. From an accountability standpoint, it's around these two words,
ownership and action. And you, you all, many of you shared that in the chat
around ownership. And then following up on ownership is
the action piece, making sure I don't just own, using the safety key result, I
don't just own safety, but I'm taking action that's helping us drive
towards and achieve the results we're trying to achieve around
safety. We're working with a, a global restaurant organization,
100,000 team member organization.
They were rolling out a, a POS, uh, a point of sale device,
and it was not, the rollout was not going well.
People were not adopting it, they weren't using it.
Leadership was very frustrated and they turned to us and brought us in to
help with this rollout of their point of sale device.
And as we worked with them, we leaned into driving clarity.
What's the priority and focus? It, uh, the, the priority was not
we need to use the point of sale device.
No, the priority was around the results they were trying to achieve, which in, in,
in this case was driving more EBITDA in the restaurant.
So they needed people to see that connection, clarity between the point of sale
device and how it would help them drive more business in the restaurants,
increase guest counts because they were able to turn around tables faster as they
were able to check them out faster with a point of sale device versus having to
go, uh, to the cashier or the register to check out.
And so clarity around how does the point of sale device help us achieve our
results? Alignment around here's what we all need to be
doing to use the point of sale device to move it forward.
And then accountability of I own the point of sale.
It's not the CEO, it's not the general manager of the restaurant.
It's every waiter, waitress, busboy, bus girl,
they all own it and need to take the action.
Now, as we drove that forward, they were then able to increase
their shareholder price by three times. Why?
Because the owner, the clarity, alignment, and accountability took off.
The change activation didn't just stop from an email saying, "Here's the change,
now let's all go do it." The change activation went deeper of here's the
change. Now clarity, how's it going to ch- help us achieve our
results? Alignment, here's the direction we need everyone moving
in and the connection to it, and then the accountability piece.
And then within a year, they were able to increase, uh, their
results by 3X in terms of shareholder value.
When you get this right, it drives the right kind of thinking and behavior
around clarity, alignment, and accountability.
And when you get this right, this leads to the culture which we
define culture simply as this, the way people think and act to get
results. That is the culture of an organization today.
It's the way people think and act to get results.
And when you get clarity and alignment and accountability right-It
drives a competitive advantage. Now,
we wanna dig a little bit deeper into clarity, alignment, accountability, and
activation, uh, to share some best practices and insights that we're seeing with
other organizations. Let's start with clarity.
So when we talk about clarity, we wanna share
this, uh, the results equation, the results equation that we put
together at Culture Partners, again, time-tested, 35-plus years of doing
this, uh, is this, it's your purpose plus your strategy
plus your culture, which equals your results.
Those components are what drive results. Here's what we see.
Here's the common trap in organizations.
They focus just on strategy. In fact, they have two-day strategic
offsite meetings where they just go deep on strategy.
The challenge with doing that is it doesn't connect to the purpose,
meaning where people are engaged in their hearts and minds, and it doesn't take
into account the culture or the people aspect of it that drives your
results. In other words, how we define it as the purpose is the why you
exist as an organization, the strategy is the how, it's the
roadmap, and then your culture becomes the way that
you're going to go and carry out that strategy.
And all of these components, uh, contribute to your
results. But again, the piece around strategy is
where organizations will over-index.
And speaking to all of you leaders on the call, we'd encourage you to
step back and help others step back and say, "Okay, that's our
strategy, but are we really taking into account the purpose
and the culture?" And having that conversation when it comes to
clarity, uh, as, as you drive that in your
organizations. Now, this is a great model, it's a model many of
you have probably seen before in your careers, we call it the results pyramid.
The results pyramid is a model that Culture Partners, uh, put together 35 years
ago and has been using ever since. It's very simple.
As you see, there's four words on a pyramid, but the power is in
the application and the understanding.
This is a culture management model.
This is a change activation model.
Let me work it up from the bottom up.
Experiences drive beliefs, beliefs influence
actions, actions produce results.
You'll see that plane through the middle.
Results and actions separate from beliefs and experiences because we call that the
action trap. Again, when leaders aren't getting results, they go right to
actions. They hire, they fire, they benefit, they incentivize, they
communicate, and they drive actions.
And we don't want to fully discount actions, because actions do produce
results
temporarily. But to get long-term sustainable change, the
pyramid shows us we have to go deeper into the beliefs people are holding
and the experiences they're having that are driving
those beliefs. So, let me give you an example.
Uh, large tech company, Silicon Valley in the United States, we were working
with them, specifically working with their sales team.
Now, one thing they were focused on was collaboration.
They needed their sales team to collaborate and work together.
The problem was, their systems weren't aligned.
So leadership was saying, "Collaborate, collaborate, collaborate." The sales team
was saying, "But there's no incentive for me to collaborate.
I have to split commission if I do that versus just
going and making my sales on my own." And so we worked with the leadership
team. They were able to adjust their system, uh, where it wasn't just
single, uh, commission, but you also had team
commission when you were working and collaborating together.
Uh, within, I kid you not, within two weeks, they said
this, this new experience that they created around
collaboration, just by adjusting the systems, within two weeks after they
did that, one of their large million-dollar accounts went from
$1 million in annual revenue, annual sales with the
company, to $5 million. Because the team came
together, they were operating differently and they were working in different parts
of this client, and then all of a sudden with the commission change, the system
change, they came together and said, "Hey, how can we complement, work together?"
All of a sudden went from 1 million to 5 million. So the experience changed.
Their belief then changed around, oh, we can really do this, the action, they
started working toge- together, the result is they got more sales than they could
have even, uh, imagined two weeks prior.
So this, this isn't on the slide, uh, but if you'll capture this somewhere,
because these are the three broadly held types of experiences
that people have in organizations every single day.
The first type of broadly held experience is your own personal
experience. If you're in a meeting or you're talking with someone, you have that
experience and it shapes your belief that drives actions and results, so your
personal experience. The second broadly held type of
experience we have is through systems, through the systems of our
organization. Again, how we communicate, how we work together, team
meetings, newsletters, all those systems, uh, payroll that
operate in the background are creating experiences.
And then the third and final type of experience, this is the most
powerful, the most sticky, the most long-lasting,
stories. The stories we tell become
experiences. And you've probably seen this before in your career.
If you start at a new organization, you start to hear stories about certain people,
you heart- start to hear stories about teams or how we work together.
And sometimes the stories take this format.
"Hey, hey, uh, you know what, uh, Blair, I'll tell you what, just, just focus on
what you need to focus on because this is the way we've always done it
around here." And all of a sudden, Blair's come into the new organization and
thought, oh, okay, I guess I can't think differently, innovate, or do that because
this is the way we've always done it, so this is the way I'll do it.
And you think how, um, uh, impactful and the negative
impact that can have on our team when we start telling stories like
that, or when we, we start telling stories of, oh, you d- y- you don't want to talk
to Melvin 'cause Melv- Melvin will always turn your ideas down, don't
share your ideas with Melvin. And all of a sudden, Melvin, as a leader, is
struggling because he's not getting the ideas or insight needed.
And so again, experiences shape beliefs, beliefs influence
actions, actions produce results.And how do we define culture, again?
Simply the way people think and act to get results.
So the question you have to ask as leaders is, to get
new, better, different results,
you can't just have new, better, different actions.
You also have to consider what are the new, better, different
experiences we can create that will drive the right beliefs,
influence their actions, and help us produce our needed
results? And that's touching on clarity that will help you move
forward as an organization. Now, alignment.
When we talk about alignment, achieving new results
requires a new culture. Uh, January 2026, a lot of
organizations are going to take their R2, which, uh,
R2 basically all it means is, uh, desired results.
And they're going to take R2 and try to stick it on top of their existing culture.
And this is where we have and we see constantly, this is what we call
cultural contradiction, where you're not aligned to achieve the
results. So again, to achieve new, better, different results, you've also got to
define and align on the pyramid. And when you do get
this right, when you do align it, this is what we've seen
consistently. When you have partial alignment, you still get
results. But when you get every piece aligned, it accelerates your
ability to change and to achieve those results you're looking to
achieve. And so stepping back and considering where
you're at in terms of alignment and what you can do, no matter your role in the
organization, what you can do to greater lead alignment as you move
forward. The final piece around accountability, I'm going to show you another
model. And, uh, I don't like to make too many guarantees, but I will
guarantee you this. This is a model that if you haven't seen
before, you will remember the rest of your life.
Why can I say that? Because I've had too many people come up to me year after
year. In fact, I, I had one senior leader, she came up to me, a
bio, uh, biotech company. She said, "Matzen, I
first saw this model in
1998." And this was a couple years ago, so I believe it was
2023. So that's 25 years after. "In 1998, I first saw this
model, and I've thought about it every day
since." That's powerful. And what is this
model? Simply the steps to accountability.
Steps to accountability show us there's two parts to accountability.
There's below the line, where you blame someone or something else.
You feel, uh, unengaged. Uh, you feel stuck and
frozen in your circumstances. Above line is where you take
accountability, to see it, to own it, to solve it, to do it, move things forward
and get results. Below the line is where we play the blame game and we're focused
on those things we cannot control.
Above the line, we focus on those things we can control and we feel
empowered. We take initiative and we get things done.
Below the line, we externalize the need for
change. Above the line, we internalize the
need for change and help move things forward.
I'm often asked, "Well, Matzen, what's the it that we're asking people to see and
solve and do?" The it is simply anything you need
people to take accountability for.
It could be the result, it could be the challenge, it could be the
opportunity, and it could be the change.
When you talk about change activation, you don't just need people seeing the
change, because what could happen is, I, I'm in HR, I see the
change, and then I tell everyone, "Hey, here's what we need to change,
but I'm not doing anything myself." Versus if I see the change,
how can I own it and solve it, go out and come up with a
solution, and then do it, go out and execute it and get things done?
And so we wanna emphasize from Culture Partners, it's
not wrong to go below the line. We all do it from time to time.
What's wrong with going there is getting stuck there.
And so it's okay, we have some clients, uh, who, I kid you
not, the first five minutes on their written meeting agenda,
it says below the line time. And they come in, they sit down, and they
open it up and say, "Okay, let's, let's, let's go there." Uh, and they say it's the
most productive time of their meeting, because after five minutes
of going below line and blaming the economy, the weather, the marketing team,
the sales team, finance, HR, IT, after
five minutes, they say, "Okay, now let's spend our time above
line," and the rest of the meeting is spent above line.
So please, make it okay for your people to go below line.
Make it okay for them to share that.
But don't make it okay to stay there.
Results don't come from being below line. They come from being above line.
I'll share a, uh, medical device company we were working with, uh, IVAC,
wholly owned subsidiary of Eli Lilly.
Uh, they shared with us, their VP of sales, Dennis Antinori, told us a story.
Uh, in, now, in their space where they were selling, they needed a new
product
every nine months to be competitive, nine months to stay competitive
to sell their product. Now, unfortunately, they hadn't had new product
for two years. It was year three. Dennis and his team, they were banking on a
new product. So they were getting ready, the sales team, they were going to hit
their numbers 'cause new product was coming.
You all know where I'm going with this.
Dennis gets a call from the VP of R&D, research and development.
Says, "Dennis, I hate to tell you this, uh, but the FDA just came
in. They blocked our product. I don't know when we'll be able to get you a new
product. It might be another year or two." Dennis, very frustrated, hung up the
phone, sat there, calls his two direct reports, two
VPs, says, "Hey, here's what's going on." They said, "Dennis, we need to meet and
we need to meet today." So that day they flew to the middle part of the country,
which for them was St. Louis in the United States.
Uh, and Dennis shares, "We didn't even get out of the terminal.
My two direct reports came up to me and they said this,
'Dennis, we need to go below the line and we need to do it
now.'" And Dennis let them, to his credit.
He said, "Okay, but I'm going to set my watch for 30
minutes, and then we're going to move above line." So for the next
30 minutes, they talked about why their numbers should change, they shouldn't be
held accountable, it's R&D's fault, all the problems they could go
through, uh, and frustrations. And then at the next, uh, uh, at
the end of 30 minutes, they then took the next two hours and put together
their above the line plan for the rest of the year.
Now-Long story short, fast-forward to December that year.
Dennis Antonouri is on the stage getting recognized by the CEO of
Eli Lilly for the best sales performance in the
history of his company. Um, and they were asked,
"How did you do it?" Dennis shared this, he said,
"Look, we had no new product, no new resources, no
new people. But what we did have was an accountable
team, a team that was focused on what we could control, a
team that was focused on being above the line." That's the power of the
steps to accountability. That's the power of redefining
accountability in a way that drives clarity, alignment, and
accountability. So when you look at change activation into 2026,
make it okay for people to go below line. We all know this.
Uh, in fact, I saw j- a bumper sticker, one of my favorite bumper
stickers I've seen, on the back of a car.
It said this, it said, "Change is easy," comma, "You go
first." (laughs) And so we, we all know that.
It's, it's we dislike change. It's, it's hard at times.
And so make it okay when changes do get rolled out.
It's not a matter of if, but when. When changes do happen,
give people the grace and space to go below the
line, and then
provide the leadership necessary to help them move above the line to focus on
what they can control. And you'll be amazed at the results you would
see. Imagine if every person in your company operated with
this model and mind of accountability. Would you see impact?
Would you see results? Uh, we've seen it time and time again, and that's what
excites us. And some, some more meat into this, if you will,
around see it, don't solve it, do it, we have 16 best practices, uh, that we've
seen in high-performing, highly-successful organizations.
I'm not going to drill into all of them, but there's a lot of meat around this.
And you'll see around communication, around learning from
success and failure, around building an environment of trust, um,
and seeking and asking for feedback.
And so you'll see these best practices play out.
When you get this right
and when you do make the shifts above the line, this is what we commonly
see. You move from a culture of externalizing to
internalizing the need for change.
You move from a culture of blaming others to taking accountability.
You move from a culture of doing the job and just going through the motions to
achieving the result. You move from a culture of working in silos
to collaborating. And then you move from a culture of telling people what to do to
engaging hearts and minds. Was with an organization just last
week, uh, it was a, a SaaS company, software as a
service, uh, and was working with them, and I was talking about above the line,
below the line, and asked them this question.
Uh, I asked them, "Just, just give me, uh, an estimate, percentage of
time, how much time does your organization spend below the
line?" They responded, 40 leaders in the
room, "70%." They said, "70% of
our time is spent below the line." And I'm no
mathematician, but if you think of that, okay, in a month we've got four weeks, so
you're talking two... 70%, you're talking two and a half weeks of every
month is being spent below the line. And I'd like to...
I, I, I, I'm interested. I'd ask you all the same question if you go to the chat.
Uh, what percentage of time would you say your organization spends below the
line today? Again, there's no wrong or right answer here.
Just looking so we can get, all get a feel or
sense, uh, for when, when, uh,
or how often your organization's below line.
So percentage it, 0% to 100%. Team in the chat, what
would you share? How often does your organization go below line
today? What would you share?
Yeah, 70, 70 to 90%
were seeing that. Yes. What else?
"How do you measure going above..." Good question, Sally.
It's, it's, it's the mindset, it's h- what you're pe- what you're hearing from
people, what you're seeing in terms of their actions.
So that's what you're measuring it on is what i- what are the actions?
What's the communication? How are people responding?
We're seeing a good range here. We're seeing 40, 80, 70 to
90%.
Yeah, 70, about 30%.
It's, it's a wide range. And, and you might, as you think of your organizations,
uh, you might also think, "Ooh, well my team is closer to...
we only do it maybe 10 or 20% of the time." But I'll tell you which team does do it
(laughs) 60, 70, 80% of the time. Uh, and so you'll see
that range. And the importance as you think of above line, below line is making
sure that you don't externalize the need for change, but you
move above the line. Uh, now, l- let me get right here.
Uh, Raquel and, and Debra, let me come to your questions actually here real
time. Uh, so Roq- Raquel asked the question, "How can we learn more
about above the line, below line framework to share with others at our
organization?" Uh, great question. We'll, we'll actually have, uh...
there will be a link here at the end, uh, that you can respond to, uh,
because we'd love to follow up with you and your team to talk a little bit further
about that, and there will be some more information we'll be, uh, sharing, uh,
materials there, Raquel. Debra's question, "Mats and I was once at a company
where I was an above line person, but worked with a couple of peers who were below
line, making working on collaborative projects challenging.
How do you handle these situations?
It often forced more work on me." Debra, thank you.
Thank you for being candid here and honest.
Uh, this, this isn't a unique situation.
And unfortunately, what can happen is it burns you out, right, Debra?
It burns you out in terms of what you're doing and it, it can become a very
frustrating, disengaging place to work.
And so the coaching we give here, again, being above line is
not go and do everyone else's jobs, even if you're seeing that.
But being above line is making sure, what else can I do to help drive
results? In some cases, it's coaching others and giving them that
coaching of, hey, I feel like we're going below line here.
Or being, as you saw, one of the best practices was around feedback, uh, being
able to ask for feedback. But Debra, in this case, it sounds like needed to
share some feedback around, hey, here's, here's what I'm feeling.
I'm, I'm feeling like maybe I'm doing too much of the work here.
I would love to collaborate more with you all.
Uh, I know I'm talking perfect world here, Debra, because I know at
times, um, that's where, uh, we coach leaders sometimes.
You have to coach up-Meaning coach up, people from below line to
above line, or coach out. Now, if it's
your leader who's being below the line, that can become very
challenging and, and that's where we would also give the same.
You've gotta coach up, help them to see it, own it, solve it, do it, but also
recognize if that's not the case and it's b- i- it's creating a
hostile work environment, your wellbeing's going down, that's where we'd say,
Debra, you'd raise your hand and say, "Yeah, I need to find something else."
Because what you don't wanna do is, being an above-line person by yourself, it's
lonely and it can cause burnout. So coach others to try to drive
that. Lead by example, of course. Uh, one of my favorite quotes, Albert
Schweitzer is, "When it comes to influencing others, example is not the main
thing: It's the only thing." And so your example of
leading above line, then coaching others to go there as well has the greatest
impact. And coach up, coach out, coach up, or move
out, uh, to find a situation where it can greater set you up for success.
But I again appreciate the question, uh, and, and the
transparency there. So as you look at these
shifts, um, again, and you see the range from
20, 30% to 70, 80% on below line, above line, below
line, it's two things. First of all, it's an awareness
model of, when am I here, above or below line?
I teach this for a living, and I, I find myself going below line at
least once a day, (laughs) at least once a day, where I have to catch
myself. So it's an awareness model.
Are you above or below line? Secondly, to Debra's
question, it's a coaching model. It's a coaching model, where we can
coach and align. Uh, I've got three kids at home, 15-year-old girl,
13-year-old girl, 10-year-old boy, who I share, loves Home Alone.
Um, and unfortunately, they know this model, and unfortunately, they call me on it,
"Dad, I feel like you're being a little bit below line." And that, that, that's the
moment where I think, oh man, why do you know?
I say, "Don't, don't use that stuff on me." But then I have to recognize,
okay, they're, they're right. They're right. Don't use this out though as a hammer.
Don't say, "Blair, you are being so below the line." That's not the most
effective way to approach above or below line.
We can have that conversation, "Hey, Blair, I feel like we might be going below
line here. What else can we do to move above line?" With a large, uh,
global organization, where in their conference room, uh, they have
the above line, below line model on their wall.
And in their meetings, as things proceed, they'll either point, they'll point below
line or point above line depending on how the conversation is going.
And so just having that level of transparency and openness, uh, make it
fun, but sharing this language around accountability helps drive
clarity, alignment, and accountability, and it will help drive the needed change
activation as you move forward. Now, to activation, we
wanna spend a little bit more time here. Unfortunately, the data shows this.
Failure is the norm. Nearly 70% of transformation efforts
fail due to employee resistance and lack of support. Why?
And this is Gallup, uh, again HBR, Wall Street Journal, you see this
over and over again, this 70% number. The question is why?
Why don't people, why do they resist change? Why, why don't they buy in?
Why is it so hard? Well, first, what we see,
leaders are misaligned. There's not alignment.
Expectations aren't clearly communicated, and employees don't
believe in the change themselves.
So, how do you lead through change?
Steps to activate change, there's three of 'em.
First, getting leaders aligned and building a path to sustainable change.
Second, gaining employee buy-in, not just their hands and feet going through
the motions, but their hearts and the m- their minds.
And then finally, creating a roadmap in driving behavioral change.
Go back to the results pyramid. It's not all about actions.
Gotta go deeper in beliefs and experiences. Give you a quick example.
Working with a large global financial organization, and, uh,
specifically one of their call centers.
Now, this call center, because of how many customers they had, they were
inundated with calls, and one of their results was
around average, reducing average call handle time.
Why did they need to do this? Because again, because of the number of calls they
were doing, for every additional, I kid you not, every additional
second of average call handle time, it was costing the organization
a million dollars to the bottom line.
So wha- what are they trying to drive?
That's right, reduce average call handle time. Leadership, they were aligned.
They said, "Okay, yeah, we gotta get this.
This is going to, to, to drive the needed change and, and the results that we
need." So they went up, out, they did the poster board campaign.
They sent out the email blast, and they did this for six months.
Reduce call handle time, reduce call handle time, reduce call handle time.
Six months of work, guess how much they reduced the average call handle
time? Goose egg. That's when they called us
and we worked them through and we asked what was going on.
They shared this with us, and we came to find out
that all the leaders, management knew
that for every additional second of average call handle time, it cost them a
million dollars to the bottom line. But guess who did not know?
That's right, the actual people on the phones.
They had no idea that it was costing them a million dollars for every
additional second. They had just been told the what,
reduce average call handle time, the when, as soon as
possible. What W word was missing from that
equation? The why. And the why didn't just
sound like, "Hey, we need to reduce this 'cause it's going to save us a million
dollars to the bottom line." The why sounded like this, and, and we worked with
them on it. The why sounded like this, "We wanna reduce average call handle
time as soon as possible, because it's costing us a million
dollars to the bottom line. Those million dollars that we could be
saving, we could reinvest into greater compensation packages, benefit
packages, bonuses pack- bonus packages for you and your, your
fellow, uh, team members as well." They rolled out
this communication. Now, six months focused on the what and the
when,
goose egg. Six weeks of focusing on the
why, the what, and the when-They reduced the average call
handle time by a minute and 43 seconds, which
again, no mathematician, but I believe that's $103
million that's they- they saved to the bottom line.
All from getting leaders aligned, gaining employee buy-in, and
then driving change. And they did that, as you saw, I hope you- you caught
this in the story, by identifying, you've probably all heard this term now, the
WIIFM. What's In It For Me?
And once team members start, "Ooh.
Yeah, if we save that, then it will be reinvested." And leadership, of course,
followed up on that after saving $103 million to the bottom line.
They s- they followed up on that and did increase compensation
benefits and bonuses as they drove that forward.
So change activation. You can't just force actions, you've gotta make sure these
three steps are all aligned as you move forward.
Now, a little bit more here on- on some success factors
that- that we share. Six critical success factors.
And again, love the comments in the chat, "The shared language is key, Raquel."
Absolutely. Uh, Yelena, yeah, "People love being in their comfort zone too
much." Yeah. It's- it's so true. And so as leaders, how do we help
them overcome that? And these six critical success factors
you'll see here, anytime it comes to change activation, has to be led
my leaders with the caveat you don't always need a title to be a
leader. So it's gotta be leader-led.
You've gotta have process and outcomes versus event.
You've gotta drive that at... This- this can't be a- an event initiative.
You- you can't just hold diversity day, uh, or have shirts printed up that
say, "Trust me," and hand them out and think, "Okay, we've now increased trust
because we're all wearing shirts that say, 'Trust me.'" You have to have a process
in place that's sustainable. Strategic linkage.
Again, clarity, alignment, and accountability.
If what you're doing in terms of change activation is not linked to the results
you're trying to achieve, you're already behind the eight-ball.
You're already putting out more noise in the organization where people will
say, "Okay, that- that's nice. Now let me get back to my job." So there's gotta be
linkage. You've gotta have a personal connection, back to the WIIFM, what's in it
for me? How is it going to impact and- and benefit those working
together? You gotta engage all. Sometimes leaders think culture, l-
let's just roll it out to our manager levels.
We don't need it down at the front lines. Huge miss.
Huge miss. You've gotta engage everyone from a change activation standpoint
so that everyone can raise their hand and say, "Yes, I can move above line to
see it, to own it, to solve it, and to do it." And then of course there's the
real-time evaluation and course correcting, knowing no plan is
perfect, uh, and we've gotta be able to adjust.
Great example of this that I'll- I'll share with you here is this.
Working with a- a plant, uh, with Ocean Spray,
uh, up in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Working with this plant and a new leader was brought
in, Tommy. Tommy was brought in and given 18 months to
turn things around. And as you can see, the turnaround, they told him, "Tommy,
look. Poor safety performance, high production costs..." But then you look at these
challenges, so Tommy, to his credit as a leader, he went and he blew
up this picture of this broken down VW Bug and he put
it in the plant that they were working on at this Ocean Spray
plant. And he shared with the team very candidly, 200
people work at this plant, he shared, "That's what corporate thinks of us and our
plant. We've got 18 months to turn it around.
They think of us as a broken down Bug.
I don't think that's us. I think we can do so much better, because it's not
time to close shop and tell everyone to go home." So he aligned, he shared the
clarity, alignment, connection, made it personable, made it memorable, wanted
people to keep their jobs, wanted them to have success moving forward.
He was given 18 months to turn things around.
Within nine months, here are the results Tommy and the team achieved.
75% reduction in recordable injuries.
$750,000 credit in material loss line item, and they were
named the best place to work, a distinction across their entire
county. When you get clarity, alignment, and accountability right around your
change activation, phenomenal results will happen
time and time again. And we love
that. Key takeaway, Tommy replaced that picture of the broken down
Bug with a picture of this Porsche saying, "We are now high performing and
this is how corporate sees us today." And you think of the lives impacted, the
jobs impacted, the results impacted, the people impacted.
That's why we love doing what we get to do at Culture Partners and comeback
stories, they're not only possible, they're our specialty.
And so if you're feeling down or defeated or your organization's had one of
those forgettable 2025s, know that it is
possible to change. It is possible to go out and achieve new, better, different
results, and it starts with clarity, alignment, accountability for your change
activation efforts as you move it forward.
Now, a change leadership workshop.
One thing that we share with you all here is- is around this change
leadership workshop
is this component here. Uh, it's creating change that lasts.
We dive in from a leadership standpoint, working with you and your team to
really operationalize change, to help, uh, identify your
results equation, to work through your own results of pyramid, your
results pyramid to see the strengths and weaknesses of your organization around
see it, don't solve it, do it, and drive this in a very engaging
format where typically we'll start with whether it's organization-wide, we
can also start functional, we can start with......
teams where we come in and help drive change to produce
results. And this change leader, leadership workshop at the end of the day, leaders
are gonna walk away with a clear framework for driving alignment, they're gonna
walk away with practical sc- tools and skills.
The models we talked about, we go deeper on those, but also give some specific next
steps and application for them to go and tools they can start using right
away. And then, they all walk away with an actionable plan to embed new behaviors
that accelerate results and, and make change stick.
And you'll see, Zach is going to pop up, there's gonna be a pop-up here that comes
up, uh, if you'd like us to reach out to talk with you and your
team, uh, if, uh, if you're interested, please go, go ahead and click
Yes again. Uh, we'd love to talk with you and, and learn more
about you and your organization and, uh, and to see if we can
help in any way. So, that's our Change Leadership workshop, uh, and
we look forward to talking with you all as we move forward.
Also, as a benefit of joining this session today with Zach
and, and the great Achieve Engagement Team, we're also excited, uh, to offer
you this up. Uh, our new book coming out, Surrender to Lead, end of
January, it's sure to be another bestseller.
Uh, very excited for the impact this is going to have, The
Counterintuitive Approach to Driving Extraordinary Results.
If you scan the QR code on the screen now, uh, you will be taken
to a page where you can put in your information and receive a complimentary copy of
this book, Surrender to Lead. It's a terrific book, and it's all formatted
around three parts, and you can guess it, clarity, alignment,
and accountability. It talks about the models, gives some more stories.
I shared a few examples here. The book has, of course, has a lot more stories and
examples that it dives into, uh, and so would, uh, would welcome you
all to redeem your complimentary copy by scanning that QR
code that's on the screen. And then also, uh, just to make you aware,
we're very excited as well, we've got our Surrender to Lead Summit coming up
January 13th. It's a virtual event where we're gonna be going deeper
into Surrender to Lead, into this content, uh, into the
application, and how it can best set you up for your change activation efforts
moving forward. Now, I will share in
closing, here's a change leadership failure.
How many times do we have to tell the kids to put their bikes in the bike rack, but
it so often looks like this? And what do we do as leaders?
Well, I'll tell you where I fall into the trap of.
I tell them, "Please put your bike away in the bike rack." I
bribe them, "Hey, if you put your bike away in the bike rack, we'll have
Popsicles," or, "Hey, allowance, we'll increase it," or I force them.
I go out, I, with them, grab the bike and put it in the bike rack.
We know tell them, bribe them, force them, does not work.
Tell them, bribe them, force them drives burnout and,
uh, and does not set anyone up for success.
Change leadership success looks like this.
We're not telling them, we're not bribing them, we're not forcing them.
We're creating clarity, alignment, and accountability for the needed
change. We're creating clarity, alignment, and accountability for
results. This is when you get it right.
This is when you drive results. This is when you create a culture
that's focused on wellbeing, satisfaction, and engagement.
And that's what we look forward to doing with each and every one of you and, and
I hope you do the same in your organizations as you move forward with your change
leadership efforts to deliver those results.
Now, I know we've had a number of questions come through during our time together,
uh, and we'll open it up to Q&A right now.
So, I'm going to go ahead and stop sharing my screen.
And Zach, I'll come to you for those, uh, for the Q&A, please.
Awesome. And before you stop sharing, can you actually go back to that QR
code slide? I had a couple comments of bringing that up.
Mm-hmm.
Also for everyone, I added in the chat some of the links to these
resources, including a link to pre-order your copy as well.
So, you can see that in the chat. Make sure you check out their,
uh, s- uh, their summit that's coming up on January 13th.
And then I would also say for those of you that are, like, planning your retreats,
planning out your offsites, planning some of these leadership
conversations as you roll out some of these new strategic plans and
goals and strategies, I mean, what a perfect time to plug that
workshop in. So, I definitely encourage you to check out that piece as well,
their culture, their Change Leadership workshop.
I mean, I'm, I'm kinda jealous. I'm, like, thinking, "All right, how might we
actually bring that at Achieve as well?" So, um, one thing I would love to
ask, a follow-up question to you that came in the chat that I was
even thinking too, and I think measurement and tracking is sometimes
the hardest part within our jobs, right?
Like, how do you actually measure if someone's below or
above the line? And you kinda talked about your own kind of
self-awareness. You can measure it and catch yourself in the
moment.
Yeah. And maybe that's part of your coaching is helping build self-awareness so people
can catch and measure themselves.
But if I'm an organization that has defined what above and below the
line looks like, how do I measure how our people
are stacking up against that, I guess?
Yeah. It's a great question, Zach.
And, and I, I will clarify too, on the QR code team, uh, Blair
has given me some feedback. Thank you, Blair.
So, on the offer for the book, uh, I gu- the book is not
complimentary, but it does include $300 of resources with an invitation to
the Surrender to Lead Summit and others.
So, I do want to clarify that for the copy of the book.
But again would, would encourage you all to, to get a copy and look forward to
that, uh, book coming out. Uh, to your question, Zach,
it's, it's one we often get. It's how do you measure success?
How do you measure this process? And there's two points, uh, that
there's two points to, to lean into.
There's the qualitative and the quantitative.
At the end of the day, you could do a survey to see where are we
at today and where are we at from six months t- from now.
We all know that survey is only as good though as the results you're achieving.
So yes, while surveys have their place, while we follow up and ask above
line, below line, and that percentage of time below line, above line, that is a
great qualitative question, along with seeing how's the environment
today. But quantitatively, at the end of the day, the most important metric are
the results. And so, how are you delivering on your results?
Whether it's sales, whether it's revenue growth, whether it's operational
efficiency, whether it's employee engagement or NPS, that promoter
score, whatever it might be, we link to your results.
And that's how we measure success of being above line versus below line is, "Zach,
are you and your team achieving your results?" And so we look at it qualitatively
and quantitatively, but most importantly, it's aligned with your
results.
Yeah, I think that's such an important point.
And I think that also, uh, 'cause a lot of times we're doing these culture efforts
for engagement, but they're not necessarily driving results.
And I think that creates a lot of frustration at the leadership team level
sometimes, right? And yeah, we should be defining, like, what are the
behaviors that are above and below line, but are in alignment and
supporting our accomplishment of these goals, right?
And I think that's such a critical connection.
Yeah.
Well, we are right at time. So everyone, I
really encourage you, one, reach out and connect to Mattson via
LinkedIn. Also make sure you connect and follow Culture Partners.
They're doing some amazing work as you can see.
Uh, check out their ebook, and we have all the links in there.
We'll follow up with some of these resources afterwards as well.
Um, and yeah, really encourage you, like, how can you even develop
that narrative and that, maybe that shared language of
above and below the line as you navigate change in
2026? So, Mattson, thank you so much for leading this today.
Thank you, Zach. Thank you, everybody.
All right. Thanks, everyone. Have a great rest of your day, uh, and
we'll see you at the next one. Thanks,
everyone.