In just five minutes a day, Dr. Jessica Kriegel, Chief Strategy Officer of Workforce and Labor for Culture Partners, unpacks the latest research, trends, and strategies shaping workplace culture—and driving business success. Designed for CEOs and executives, this daily podcast delivers actionable insights to build high-performance cultures that get real results.
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Tentwentytwo / Culture Partners Podcasts
In today’s episode: Jessica and John discuss the recent Business Insider piece on SHRM -- and all the problems with the reporting. The piece seems to take issue with the fact that SHRM is a business with rules and a culture that's driving results. SHRM is adapting to the new era of work more successfully than most of the HR world. CEO Daily Brief i…
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In today's episode: Entrepreneur and endurance athlete Greg Schaefer discusses how his Parkinson's diagnosis has affected his leadership thinking. Greg says he leads today with more calmness, clarity, and compassion than in years past--and the result is a tight-knit team with low turnover. It's important to consider what people feel and think--but …
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In today’s episode: The data is clear that we're in a K-shaped economy: there's a wealthy class that's getting richer, while lower-income Americans are struggling more and more. The loss of a middle class is coming from the push to drive profitability and reducing head count--and it's being accelerated by the rise of AI. This is an inflection point…
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In today’s episode: Jessica predicts that 2026 will be the year that a company annouces an AI CEO. We're seeing examples of AI getting integrated into leadership--one of SHRM's executives created an AI clone of CEO Johnny C. Taylor in order to workshop ideas before pitching them for real. AI CEOs have some compelling arguments, like a lack of polit…
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In today's episode: Jessica and Culture Partners CEO Joe Terry discuss the origins of Surrender to Lead, the book they co-authored that's coming out next year. It should be freeing to know that you can't control your circumstances; unfortunately, we use control as a defense mechanism. The action trap doesn't work. What does work is crea…
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In today's episode: In the face of AI, AirBnB's CEO warns that it's important to continue hiring Gen Z--arguing that they're necessary for leadership in the years down the line. The job market is hard for everyone, but it's especially bad for young workers. It's a generational collapse in the training pipeline. This is a cultural story, not just an…
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In today's episode: New data shows that the average CEO's tenure is down more than a year in just the last two years. The leash is short for CEOs, and scrutiny is high. Boards seem to be betting on fresh eyes rather than familiar hands; we're entering an era of precision leadership, rather than a focus on longtime company stewards. This is likely t…
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In today’s episode: A new study shows many frontline employees find middle managers to provide a crucial role--translating the jargon from the executive team. There's a clear correlation between "management that effectively communicates" and the sense that the company cares for employees. Leaders often think that employees just want a secure job, b…
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In today’s episode: With a lack of trust in the federal jobs report, the private sector has come up with their own analysis: the unemployment rate is 5.0%. The jobs report is, more than anything, a directional metric. It doesn't seem like companies are feeling the loss of the federal jobs number. Did we ever really need it? CEO Daily Brief is a dai…
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In today's episode: Jessica and Culture Partners CEO Joe Terry discuss Surrender to Lead, the book they co-authored that's coming out next year. If you want something to scale, you need to operationalize it. That requires constant repetition. When you've "run the play" enough times, it becomes second nature and then naturally flows. Repeat …
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In today’s episode: Is Elon Musk's recent trillion-dollar Tesla pay package fair? It's part of a larger argument about the fundamental function of capitalism, taxation, and philanthropy. John argues it's a part of a larger system incentivizes innovation to bring change. CEO Daily Brief is a daily, five-minute podcast for CEOs where we dissect the w…
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In today's episode: Lenovo's Chief Inclusion Officer, Calvin Crosslin, explains the key role of diversity in a global organization, even with all the pushback against DEI in the last year. Inclusion involves a diversity of culture, language, and thought, which can vary wildly around the world and in different areas of a company. Core company cultur…
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In today’s episode: The government shutdown has had a huge impact on airport delays and cancellations, creating havoc for millions of Americans. That dissatisfaction with government likely impacted last week's election results nationwide. A lot of us are wondering who's to blame. But real accountability comes from the question: what can we do that'…
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In today's episode: Jessica breaks down SHRM Blueprint conference -- which wasn't necessarily positive about DEI. Officials from the Trump administration were invited, and there was definitely tension between their messaging and the audience. Fundamentally, disageements over the meaning of "equity" reinforced SHRM's decision to move toward the labe…
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In today's episode: Jessica and Culture Partners CEO Joe Terry discuss the origins of Surrender to Lead, the book they co-authored that's coming out next year. The real source of change resistance in the modern age is change fatigue. People are tired of making big swings in strategy and tactics. The companies that are facing the least res…
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In today's episode: Jessica breaks down the recent panel at the SHRM Blueprint conference, where Van Jones and Robby Starbuck took live questions and debated all things DEI. The conversation proved civil and informative, with tough questions from the audience and some middle ground found between both panelists. You can watch the full livestreamed p…
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In today’s episode: AI is a tool that can let people become exceptionally innovative or exceptionally lazy. Previous technological revolutions allowed us to produce more--this one is about efficiency, which is likely to reduce jobs and damage the economy. People need to remember that AI tools are only as good as the data they're based on; to use it…
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In today’s episode: Amazon recently laid off 30,000 white-collar workers--and they're not the only big company that just did major layoffs. There's going to be a cascading effect across the workforce as companies use this for cover. This is part of a broader story about a weakened labor market nationwide, and it's just a warm-up for what's to come.…
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In today’s episode: Large investment banks are partnering with OpenAI to permanently replace junior investment banking jobs with AI. This is where we're going to see the biggest AI-related impacts in the workforce going forward. The big question: in the absence of junior professionals, where are leaders going to come from? How will capitalism adjus…
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In today's episode: Jessica and Culture Partners CEO Joe Terry discuss the origins of Surrender to Lead, the book they co-authored that's coming out next year. Employee disengagement is often a reaction to fear-based leadership. When leaders are obsessed with control, apathy becomes one of the few ways that employees retake agency. People w…
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In today’s episode: Zoom's CEO has begun using an AI avatar to deliver information on earnings calls. Human authenticity is important for culture and relationships, but the CEO's relationship to employees isn't the same as the relationship with shareholders. With earnings calls being so impersonal and heavily-scripted by design, John argues the use…
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In today's episode: Adobe's Stacy Martinet explains how the company is adopting AI internally. We're still in the early days of AI in the workplace; it's about collaborative learning across disciplines and levels of the corporate ladder. The first step for leaders is giving people permission to try things with AI. The companies and people that embr…
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In today’s episode: The new inflation numbers are lower than expected...but it's still going up. To an extent, all financial numbers are spin. There's also a growing distrust about national financial economic health numbers. CEO Daily Brief is a daily, five-minute podcast for CEOs where we dissect the week's biggest news, unpack hot-button workplac…
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In today’s episode: Political labels have always been a danger zone for corporate leaders. Recently, we've seen leaders who have been liberal-leaning in the past turn friendlier to the Trump administration. There are a lot of complicated political and economic calculations that go into those decisions, and nobody has a crystal ball to be able to te…
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In today's episode: Jessica and Culture Partners CEO Joe Terry discuss the origins of Surrender to Lead, the book they co-authored that's coming out next year. Control feels good for leaders--it can get you an initial boost in productivity, but it doesn't have legs. In the Stanford research, companies that focused on control saw 10% growth; b…
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In today’s episode: A new study shows that most people are willing to take up to a 25% pay cut if they're able to work from home. More flexibility creates more options for employees; they're more likely to stick around. This works especially well for working mothers. Return-to-office mandates to "save" a company's culture is a result of mistrust or…
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In today’s episode: Government workers are struggling with the continuing government shutdown. Jessica and John have some advice. The promise of job stability for government work is gone. There are probably going to be a lo There are many roles in the private sector for employees who are capable of handling bureaucracy and paperwork. For those look…
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Women Leaving the Workforce - Jessica on CNN
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In today's episode: A larger number of women are leaving the workforce in 2025, seemingly for good. It's likely related to return-to-office mandates. When a company has more than 50% of leadership roles filled by women, they have stronger revenue growth, culture, and employee engagement. This is a real problem for the bottom line. If women are leav…
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In today’s episode: UKG is rolling out an app that integrates with Siri--making it easier for employees to proactively find available shifts in the region. A move like this is putting control into the hands of the hourly worker. It's a good example of technology working for both the employee and the for the company. CEO Daily Brief is a daily, five…
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In today's episode: Jessica and Culture Partners CEO Joe Terry discuss the origins of Surrender to Lead, the book they co-authored that's coming out next year. Accountability is not just about deadlines and punishment; that paradigm creates stress, pain, and fear. Accountability is about making a personal choice to focus on what you can contr…
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In today’s episode: Executive leaders are having a hard time differentiating between their customer and their buyer. A company's impact on the customer can be incredible and inspirational--but the buyer (like a CFO) cares about the business results. That's why Culture Partners tends to do well--it's a company that sells culture consulting, but high…
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In today's episode: Eventbrite's Julia Hartz explains how she saw other companies fail on a culture level, and her passion for creating a sustainable culture. Culture is a manifestation of the people who are present. Resilience is the resting state for a great leader. You have to take care of yourself in order to create longevity in the company. CE…
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In today's episode: Major disruptions may actually be the moments that strengthen employee trust--when leaders handle it well. Employees place more trust in their direct managers than with the company; while trust in a manager often starts higher, it's a fragile thing. Mishandled crises can make that number plummet. When managers handle issues with…
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In today’s episode: President Trump has indicated that not all furloughed federal workers could receive backpay after the government shutdown. There are essential employees who are still working--like air traffic controllers. Not paying them would be a violation of state and federal labor laws. Government work used to have the perk of job security.…
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In today's episode: Jessica and Culture Partners CEO Joe Terry discuss the origins of Surrender to Lead, the book they co-authored that's coming out next year. The world is still course-correcting after COVID, with a push and pull between employees and employers. Add AI uncertainty, and leaders are in a difficult position. It can easily feel li…
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In today's episode: Jessica recently interviewed the Co-CEOs of Alorica on the Culture Leaders podcast. There are many different models for Co-CEOs. With Alorica, they don't split the company. Both leaders share equal responsibility and complete decision-making power. The model has its strengths and weaknesses. The median tenure for co-CEOs is shor…
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By tentwentytwo / Culture Partners
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In today’s episode: Workslop -- the results of ChatGPT and other AI being submitted without sufficient human review--is becoming a larger issue in the workplace. People are at risk of submitting workslop when they're made to move too quickly. AI can be used to generate ideas or fine-tune completed work, but it currently lacks the attention to detai…
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In today’s episode: The U.S. GDP has been revised up to 3.8%. The number looks good, but what's really going on? The math behind the GDP can be misleading. Tariffs are reducing imports, which makes the export numbers look relatively larger. When you add the bad labor numbers, it's clear none of this makes sense. Markets and the news aren't celebrat…
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In today's episode: Jessica and Culture Partners CEO Joe Terry discuss the origins of Surrender to Lead, the book they co-authored that's coming out next year. Leaders are often familiar with the phrase "control the controllables" -- it's important to let go of the uncontrollables. Ego and fear lead us to over-focus on control, but great ideas of…
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In today’s episode: Jessica and John discuss Suzy Welch's op-ed, Is Gen Z Unemployable? Gen Z workers prefer self-care, authenticity, altruism, affluence, and beauty. Companies want them to value achievment, learning, and "an unbridled desire to work." These studies about generational stereotypes are, largely, nonsense. When asked directly, most …
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In today's episode: Alorica's Max Schwendner & Mike Clifton describe how they cooperate as Co-CEOs leading over 100,000 employees. One key value: decisiveness. When one makes a decision as CEO, that's the only CEO decision. They communicate constantly to make that work, and they know intuitively what the other is likely to say. They build goals for…
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In today’s episode: Everyone is worried about risk, but what exactly does that mean? Look no further than Section 1A of every public company's 10-K filing with the SEC. We can learn what's concerning company leaders by seeing the risks they're worried about, laid out in the filing. Sales people: If you can identify a company's risks and offer a dir…
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In today’s episode: There was mass outrage following Jimmy Kimmel's show being pulled from the air--but not nearly as much for 800,000 jobs lost this year. Why is that? There was a clear theme with the Kimmel situation: justice versus injustice. When people have a story, they're motivated to take action that moves the needle. Leaders forget that st…
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In today's episode: Jessica and Culture Partners CEO Joe Terry sit down to discuss the origins of Surrender to Lead, the book they co-authored that's coming out next year. Despite coming at ideas from different places, tough conversations led to answers about leadership that they had to write about. Eventually, they hit upon the key idea of surrend…
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In today’s episode: Companies haven't actually figured out how AI can transform their business to the point of replacing broad swaths of the organization. There's a narrative that the job market is stalling because of AI. That's true, but it's because companies are finding the budget to investigate the potential for AI--consulting and exploration, …
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In today’s episode: 39% of Americans 30 and younger regularly get their news from TikTok. There's a lack of trust in government, politics, and instititions--many are aggressively removing themselves from political discourse. That's dangerous for democracy. We no longer have a Walter Kronkite, largely trusted by the public. Objective news doesn't se…
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In today’s episode: Conservative activist Robby Starbuck will be debating DEI with Van Jones in a conversation moderated by SHRM's CEO, Johnny C. Taylor. Taylor received a lot of criticism for SHRM's changing language from "DEI" to "I&D" -- something Jessica discussed with him in her interview last year. CEO Daily Brief is a daily, five-minute podc…
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In today’s episode: Free speech can cost us friends and jobs; it doesn't mean freedom from consequences. There's a difference between condoning behaviors and inciting riots. You can say some pretty vile things legally--but inciting violence is against the law. On the employer side, though: there's plenty that's controversial that would be a bad ide…
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In today’s episode: The Fed governors all agree on one thing: the labor market is failing. They'll cut interest rates, but it's not going to change our labor economy. There's also the strange sitaution of pressure from the Trump administration--which is making it tougher for the Fed to to do what Trump wants them to do. CEO Daily Brief is a daily, …
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