Courage to Advance with Kim Bohr

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. 

The Motivation Myths Burning Out Your Best Leaders

Your best leaders aren't leaving because they lack passion—they're leaving because you're using motivational myths that defy brain science. 
Dr. Bobby Hoffman reveals research on 6 million college students showing extrinsic motivation (money, recognition, status) drives performance—yet we shame people for wanting it. The result? Self-doubt, anxiety, burnout, and during change initiatives, your top talent walks out the door. 
The culprit? The "follow your passion" narrative creating guilt around fundamental human needs while leaders design change initiatives for their own mental models instead of employees' self-beliefs. 
In this conversation, Dr. Bobby Hoffman (Associate Professor at UCF, former corporate HR consultant for GE, NBC, KPMG, and the NBA, author of The Paradox of Passion and Hack Your Motivation) shares: 
Why extrinsic motivation isn't shallow—it's essential for sustained performance 
The "momostasis" principle: Why your brain requires motivational cycles with recovery periods 
Why change initiatives fail: Ignoring employees' locus of control and mental models 
Awareness hacks to prevent motivational crashes before they destroy trust 
How to design rewards within employee discretion for long-term engagement 
Resources mentioned: Dr. Hoffman's books The Paradox of Passion and Hack Your Motivation, plus 100+ Psychology Today articles translating neuroscience into actionable strategies. 
Stop losing talent to motivational myths. Listen now. 

Parenthood Advantage: Stop Losing Your Best Talent

Your best employees aren't leaving because they became parents—they're leaving because you don't know how to support them.
Mason Donovan and Mark Kaplan reveal shocking research: 100% of parents believe becoming a parent made them better employees—more empathetic, resilient, and organized. Yet the "motherhood penalty" persists (4% income decrease per child), while men get a 6% bonus.
The culprit? Well-intentioned managers making career-killing decisions "on behalf of" parents without including them.
In this conversation, Mason and Mark (Managing Partners of The Dagoba Group and authors of The Parenthood Advantage) share:
The manager assumption trap driving talent away
Why 95% of companies fail to support working parents adequately
Three organizational quick wins to stop the talent bleed
How parents can own their leave and advocate effectively
Special offer: Get 25% off The Parenthood Advantage with code COURAGE
Stop losing your best talent. Listen now.

HR's Make-or-Break Moment: Leading Your Organization's AI Transformation

71% of employees just faced major disruption—most of it AI-driven. Yet in most organizations, HR isn't in the room when AI strategy gets decided.
In this urgent conversation, Kim Bohr and change management expert Maria Ross reveal why HR has approximately six months to claim their seat at the AI transformation table—or risk watching technology teams make people decisions without you.
Drawing on SparkEffect's groundbreaking Trust Study showing only 36% of organizations emerge stronger from disruption, they expose the hidden cost of treating AI as "just a tech project." You'll discover the exact conversation starters that get HR heard, why empathetic leadership drives 61% more innovation, and which crisis interventions actually preserve trust (hint: transparency about uncertainty backfires).
This isn't about ChatGPT adoption. It's about positioning HR as the architect of human-centered transformation—before someone else defines your organization's future.
Download the full Trust Report and presentation deck HERE

Manager Trust Under Fire: The Hidden Leadership Vulnerability

Your direct managers are your organization's greatest trust asset—and your most dangerous vulnerability during crisis. New research reveals why.
In partnership with cultural anthropologist Dr. Aaron Delgaty, SparkEffect conducted the most comprehensive study on organizational trust during disruption. The findings flip conventional crisis management wisdom: 71% of employees experienced significant workplace disruption in the past 24 months, yet only 36% emerged with stronger trust.
What separated the winners from the losers? How leadership—especially frontline managers—handled the critical moments when trust was most fragile.
Discover why manager trust takes the biggest hit during crisis despite outperforming organizational leadership in normal times, the intervention that's twice as likely to strengthen trust (it costs nothing), and how "trust elasticity" determines which organizations bend versus break under pressure.
This isn't theory. This is data-driven insight into the leadership capability that will define competitive advantage in an era of constant disruption.