The Transform Dialogues: People, Culture & The Future of Work with Kamaria Scott

All right. We are joined here for the Transform Dialogues live at Transform part of this series where we are trying to dig into the things that matter in the world of people strategy, culture and the future of work. I am your host and we have a very special guest for this session. We’re here with Kamaria Scott, and, uh, we’re very lucky to have you here with us. Thanks for being here.

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be here and to be part of Transform. It’s always a great place to connect with people who care deeply about the way we work and the people who make that work happen.

To kick things off, I’d love for you to introduce yourself. Tell us a bit about your background and what you’re focused on today.

Absolutely. I’m an industrial‑organizational psychologist by training and by practice. Most of my career has been in the space of performance—really closing performance gaps for organizations by equipping people leaders to lead high‑performing teams. I’m the Founder and CEO of Enetic, a boutique consulting firm that improves the performance of people leaders through development enablement, performance consulting, and coaching. My core focus is helping managers become the kind of leaders who can consistently get great outcomes through their people while also maintaining a healthy, human‑centered culture.

When you talk about closing performance gaps, what does that look like on the ground? Where do you typically start?

I often start in the messy middle—with managers. Managers are the leverage point. They translate strategy into day‑to‑day behavior. They hold the tension between people’s needs and the organization’s goals. And they’re often under‑supported. If you want consistent performance, you have to equip managers with clarity, tools, and operating rhythms so they can lead intentionally instead of reactively.

Say more about that tension—between people needs and org goals.

Managers have a duty of care for their direct reports—the human side. That means creating psychological safety, ensuring clarity, giving feedback, removing barriers, supporting growth. But they also have a duty to the organization—to deliver outcomes, align to the mission, steward resources. When you don’t equip managers to hold both duties well, you either get high human cost with low performance, or you get short‑term output with long‑term burnout and attrition. Neither is sustainable.

You’ve built something you call the Manager Momentum Operating System. What is it and why “operating system”?

It’s an OS in the sense that it’s the set of routines, cadences, and decision rules that keep a team running. It has four loops: Diagnose (what’s the real performance problem?), Enable (skills, tools, clarity), Nudge (environmental cues and prompts that make the right behavior easy), and Reinforce (coaching, feedback, and consequences tied to outcomes). Most companies throw training at managers. Training without an operating system rarely sticks. You need mechanisms.

What are some common misdiagnoses you see when performance dips?

We over‑index on individual capability and under‑index on system constraints. Is it a skill issue—or is the goal ambiguous, the process broken, incentives misaligned, or workload unreasonable? Another misdiagnosis is calling a motivation problem what is actually a clarity or friction problem. People don’t wake up wanting to underperform. Usually, something in the environment is getting in the way.

Let’s talk middle managers—lots of debate about whether this layer is bloated, crucial, or both.

Middle managers are crucial. They’re translators and integrators. If you cut them without redesigning how work is coordinated, you create bottlenecks and overload. But the role needs to be designed for focus. We ask managers to be super‑ICs, project managers, HR partners, culture keepers, and strategists—then blame them when they juggle poorly. Clarify the manager job and equip it with an OS.

Where does AI productively fit into manager work?

AI can be a force multiplier—drafting feedback, summarizing 1:1 notes, prepping agenda prompts, surfacing risks across a team, de‑biasing performance notes, or nudging managers at the right moment (for example, “It’s been 14 days since feedback for X”). But AI should augment judgment, not replace it. The human parts—context, values, tradeoffs—still sit with the manager.

If you had to pick three manager behaviors that move performance the most, what are they?

Clarity (goals, roles, success criteria). Cadence (consistent 1:1s, operating reviews, decision logs). Coaching (timely feedback and development conversations linked to outcomes). If a manager reliably does those three, performance goes up almost every time.

How do you measure manager effectiveness beyond engagement scores?

Use leading indicators tied to the OS: percent of team with up‑to‑date goals and success measures; 1:1 completion and quality; cycle time and quality for decisions; goal attainment by quarter; growth moves from 70/20/10 learning plans; regrettable attrition; internal mobility. Numbers don’t tell the whole story, but they keep the system honest.

A lot of organizations say they “develop managers” but don’t see impact. What’s missing?

Development without enablement doesn’t change performance. Give managers playbooks, templates, and shared language. Pair training with live practice and coaching. Embed nudges into tools they already use. And align consequences—promotion, recognition, and rewards—to the behaviors you expect. When the environment supports the behavior, managers follow through.

What does “closing performance gaps” look like over a 90‑day sprint?

Pick one business outcome that matters. Diagnose the constraint. Stand up the OS: clarify success metrics, set the cadence (1:1s, weekly review, monthly operating review), enable the key skill or tool, nudge the behavior, and reinforce with coaching. Don’t boil the ocean—stack small wins. Momentum compounds.

Any advice for executives who want to empower managers without micromanaging them?

Set the what with ruthless clarity. Resource the how. Inspect the OS, not the personality. Ask, “What cadence is in place? What decisions were made and why? What did we learn this week?” When you inspect the mechanism, you get leverage without hovering.

Final thoughts?

Managers can be the most powerful force for good in an organization when we design for their success. Give them clarity, mechanisms, and coaching—and watch both performance and wellbeing rise.

Thank you so much, Kamaria. This was fantastic—practical, actionable, and very human. Appreciate you joining us at Transform.

Thank you for having me. Loved the conversation and the energy at Transform.

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