Courage to Advance with Kim Bohr

Reading the Room: What Music Taught an IT Leader About Trust

What if the most important skill for leading a technology transformation has nothing to do with technology?It's a question Kim Bohr has been asking for years. And when she met Bob Wallis, she found someone who had spent his entire career proving the answer.Bob Wallis, fractional CIO and founder of 61 Keys LLC, has spent his career proving that the difference between a system rollout that succeeds and one that quietly destroys organizational trust comes down to one thing: how well you read the room. SparkEffect's own Trust Study found that only 36% of organizations that faced significant disruption emerged with stronger trust and in Bob's experience, the ones that lost ground almost always lost it the same way. Not because the software failed. Because the human foundation was never built.
A background that runs from music education to Fortune 500 leadership development to multi-million dollar ERP implementations taught him that people don't change because of a business directive. They change when the leader driving change has earned enough trust to ask for it.
Bob brings head and heart into every engagement interviewing vendor teams for fit, not just capability, setting honest expectations about the hard parts before they happen, and making sure HR has a genuine seat at the table rather than a notification after the decision is made. His measure of success isn't a smooth go-live. It's walking out the door knowing the internal leaders he developed don't need him anymore.What you'll discover in this episode:
Why trust is the real foundation of every technology transformation and what breaks it before the project begins
How to evaluate vendor relationships, not just vendor platforms
Why HR belongs at the table with authority from day one
What the Know-Feel-Do communication framework does for teams navigating uncertainty
How to develop internal leaders during a project so the organization comes out stronger than it went in
Why the best consultants measure success by what the organization can do without them
   "Choosing the vendor matters more than choosing the platform." Bob WallisConnect with Bob Wallis: 🔗 Website: https://61keysllc.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bob-wallis-512ba322/Connect with Kim Bohr and SparkEffect: 🔗  
Website:SparkEffect
Email: Kim.Bohr@sparkeffect.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimbohr/

Childcare Isn't a Perk. It's a Workforce Strategy.

We’ve spent years implementing HR technology to fix workplace problems that technology was never going to fix. Calli Bakken built a career inside that system, watched it fail, and came out the other side with a different answer: if you want employees to show up fully, start by solving the problems they carry through the door.
After 15 years in HR, HR tech, and an employee engagement startup, Calli Bakken reached a conclusion most organizations aren’t ready to hear: companies had the data on what their people needed, and they chose not to act on it. No platform closes that gap. The will of leadership does.
That realization, combined with becoming a parent in early 2020 and navigating a broken childcare system firsthand, led her to found Wiggle Work. Her model helps mid-size employers (200 to 1,000 people) build community-integrated childcare that is financially sustainable, trust-building, and designed for the way families actually live. In this episode, Calli and Kim Bohr explore what it costs organizations to keep treating childcare as someone else’s problem, and what becomes possible when they don’t.
About Calli Bakken
Calli Bakken is the founder of Wiggle Work, a consulting company mobilizing workplace childcare as a strategic workforce solution, and the Interim Executive Director of Matthew’s Voice Project, a nonprofit supporting students experiencing homelessness. She is also the co-host of the Work Sucks podcast.
 

Why 70% of Change Initiatives Fail and What It Means for AI

What if 70% of change initiatives are failing for the exact same reason and your AI rollout is next? 
Ted Wolf, founder of Guidewise AI, has spent decades building businesses and overseeing technology implementations, including 300+ ERP rollouts, watching the same failure pattern repeat. The technology worked. The business case was solid. People just didn't change. After scaling a staffing company from $1,000 to 650 employees and an Iron Mountain acquisition, Ted co-founded Guidewise AI with his son to solve the problem nobody in the AI conversation is naming directly: people adoption is where every implementation actually wins or loses. 
His Changeworks platform delivers something no project management tool has ever provided: 40 human-centered metrics that surface what employees believe, feel, and make meaning of during an AI rollout in real time, so leaders can address adoption before it becomes a crisis. 
What you'll learn in this episode: 
Why 70% of change initiatives fail and why your AI rollout is hitting the same wall 
What "pilot purgatory" is and the three questions that get your organization out of it 
How beliefs, emotions, and meaning-making determine whether your people adopt or resist 
Why AI cannot be handed to IT, and which departments need a seat at the table from day one 
What 40 human-centered metrics look like and why your current tools are leaving you in the dark 
How HR leaders can stop being informed of the plan after it's already been made 
What the dual workforce looks like in practice and why managing AI agents isn't that different from managing people 
"You can spend years earning trust, but it really takes one decision and one bad day to completely destroy all the trust that was put in place." Ted Wolf 
Connect with Ted Wolf: 🔗   
Website: guidewise.ai 
Email: ted@guidewise.ai 
LinkedIn: Ted Wolf : https://www.linkedin.com/in/tedwolftwo/ 
Connect with Kim Bohr and SparkEffect: 🔗  
Website:SparkEffect
Email: Kim.Bohr@sparkeffect.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimbohr/
 

Why Your Organization Needs a Fractional CHRO

What if your organization’s biggest people problems aren’t a skills issue — they’re an access issue? 
Only 2% of global CEOs have ever been CHROs. Dr. Suzi Potts spent 25 years watching family-owned businesses hit critical moments, generational transitions, restructurings, down markets, without anyone in the room who understood the human side of the decision. So she left a prestigious SVP role and built something different: a fractional CHRO model that gives small and mid-size businesses access to board-level people strategy exactly when they need it. 
In this episode, Suzi and Kim Bohr dig into how the model works, what it took to bet on herself when the income was uncertain and every instinct said go back, and the one thing she tells every leader sitting on the edge of a transition. 
What You’ll Learn 
Why P&L is a lagging indicator and what signals you’re missing upstream 
How “seasons and reasons” works in practice for high-stakes people strategy 
What radical transparency did for Suzi’s longest client relationship 
What every leader in transition needs to hear before they fold 
Key Quote 
“You absolutely can’t afford to not do it, because you’re already compromising.” — Dr. Suzi Potts 
Connect with Suzi: suzie@suziepotsconsulting.com 
Courage to Advance is hosted by Kim Bohr, President and COO of SparkEffect. New episodes drop every 2nd, 3rd and 4th Tuesday of each month.

Rightsizing Your Policies: Stop Managing to the 5% with Mitchell Jeffery

Your policies are not failing because of the 5% who might abuse them, but because they quietly erode trust with the 95% who are doing their best work. When disruption hits, control-heavy policies put managers in an impossible spot and make your top performers feel punished instead of trusted.​
Mitchell Jeffery, founder of Ember Collective, helps organizations redesign HR policies from control-based to trust-centered frameworks that actually support modern work. In this episode, he and host Kim Bohr break down why rigid attendance and one-size-fits-all rules damage credibility, and how reframing “fair” vs. “equitable” can transform the employee experience.​
Mitchell Jeffery and Kim Bohr explore:
Why policies built for the 5% quietly alienate the 95%—and how to spot it in your organization.​
The fair vs. equitable framework for attendance, PTO, holidays, and bereavement.​
How return-to-office mandates and point-based attendance systems erode trust at the manager level.​
The four policies to reform first if you want to build trust resilience before the next disruption.​
For executives, CHROs, and senior leaders who want to build high-trust, high-performance organizations, this episode offers a practical starting point: begin with policy, not another culture campaign.

How Leaders Build Trust When Their Brain Says Run

Your leadership skills vanish when fight-or-flight kicks in. Learn how to build trust when your brain screams "run." For executives facing high-stakes pressure. 
Key Takeaways: 
Why technical competence is useless if you can't access it under pressure 
The exact moment manager trust collapses—and how to prevent it 
Strategic NeuroRegulation: training your nervous system like a musician trains their fingers 
Data: Organizations with self-regulating leaders handle disruption 6.5× better 
Harry Pickens conquered stage fright performing with jazz legends, then proved his neuroscience framework through caregiving, cancer, and long COVID. Founder, Strategic NeuroRegulation Institute. 
Learn More: → Download Trust Study: sparkeffect.com/trust-study 

From Survival Mode to Trust: How One CEO Transformed Healthcare Leadership

71% of employees experienced a crisis in the past 24 months, but only 36% of organizations emerged with strengthened trust. The difference? Leaders who understand that rebuilding trust requires listening, not fixing.
When Tammy Green became the third CEO in three years, 160 employees were in survival mode. Physicians were leaving. The board said, "Everything's broken." Most leaders would have arrived with a 90-day turnaround plan. Tammy made a harder choice: she stopped talking and started listening.
The culprit? Leaders who confuse action with progress. Without authentic listening and trust reserves, organizations break under pressure rather than bend.
Tammy Green and Kim Bohr explore:
The listening tour that changed everything, observation over immediate action
Why trust in managers is both stronger and more fragile than organizational trust
Building trust reserves before a crisis hits, not during
The three leadership superpowers: presence, listening to learn, and curiosity
Resources: Connect with Tammy at tammygreenconsulting.com
A practical framework for leaders rebuilding trust from survival mode to high performance.

The Pivot Rules: How Leaders Navigate Career Setbacks Without Breaking

71% of employees experienced a crisis in the past 24 months, but only 36% of organizations emerged with strengthened trust. The difference? Leaders who understand that career transitions trigger real grief. 
Former NFL quarterback BJ Coleman learned this when told to "find your own way home." Now CEO of Pivotal Health Partners and author of The Pivot, he's developed eight rules for navigating identity crises during career shifts. His key insight? Career loss requires the same grief processing as any significant loss. 
The culprit? Treating transitions as logistical events, not human experiences. Without grief processing, we break trust and strand employees in identity crisis. 
BJ Coleman and Kim Bohr explore: 
The "iceberg principle"—mapping your invisible value beyond your title
Whycareer grief requires real processing, not just "moving on"
Normalizing help-seekingwithout compromising performance 
"Choosing your hard"—why acknowledging difficulty empowers change
Resources: Download chapter one at bjcoleman.com/the-book 
A practical framework for helping your people bend without breaking. 

Beyond KPIs: The CEO Competencies Boards Often Miss

Here's a boardroom paradox: The person who can make or break your organization—your CEO—receives the least comprehensive performance evaluation. Most boards focus narrowly on KPIs and operating objectives, missing the nuanced competencies that truly predict success.
In this conversation, Kim Bohr and SparkEffect Board Chair Mike Humphries reveal why well-intentioned boards still get CEO evaluations wrong. You'll discover the critical competencies beyond financial performance—adaptability, stakeholder leadership, and critical thinking—that separate sustainable success from short-term wins. Mike shares why co-creating evaluations with your CEO changes everything, what warning signs boards consistently miss when "numbers look good," and how independent assessments unlock honest feedback in the loneliest executive role.
If you're a board member, CHRO, or senior leader responsible for CEO evaluation, this episode will transform how you approach executive assessment.
 
 

Google vs. Barcelona: Two Paths for AI and Trust

The traditional change management playbook doesn't work for AI—and most organizations are about to learn this the hard way. 
David Eliot, PhD candidate and author of Artificially Intelligent: The Very Human Story of AI, reveals a critical insight: those building AI systems actively benefit from keeping people confused. When confusion reigns, democratic participation gets deferred to tech executives who have vested interests—not the leaders and employees who'll live with the consequences. 
The proof? Google's failed Toronto smart city versus Barcelona's thriving democratic smart city. Same technology. Opposite outcomes. 
In this conversation, David and Kim Bohr (President of SparkEffect) explore: 
Why AI Advisory boards filled with tech executives create dangerous knowledge gaps 
The Barcelona model: democratic decision-making, hidden technology, citizen voting on data use 
Google's Toronto failure: corporate opacity versus public good 
The entry-level pipeline crisis: "We're going to run out of the well to promote from within" 
AI as amplifier: magnifying both society's problems AND its solutions 
Why understanding algorithms from 700 AD matters for today's implementations 
SparkEffect's Trust Study found AI-driven systems among the most disruptive forces to employee trust. 
The difference between the 36% who emerge stronger and the 64% who don't? Transparency, inclusion, and who controls the decisions. 
Build trust through AI implementation. Listen now.