The Biology of Trust at Work with Dr. Paul Zak
Most leaders say they value trust. It shows up in mission statements, leadership principles, and internal messaging. But when trust breaks down,...
Why Your Best People Are Burning Out (and What Leaders Can Do About It)
Guy Winch is a licensed psychologist, author, and one of the most-watched TED speakers on emotional health. His latest book, Mind Over Grind: How to...
Designing Meetings That Actually Get Work Done
Meetings are supposed to be where work happens. Decisions get made. Priorities get set. Alignment either clicks into place or quietly unravels. And...
Service Excellence Is Earned, Not Claimed
Each year, I remind our team of a simple truth. How our clients feel about working with us matters. A lot. That belief is why I’m incredibly proud...
Employee Spotlight: Claire Tangvald on Human Connection, Adaptability, and Growth
Claire Tangvald brings calm, care, and clarity to some of the most personal moments our clients and their employees experience. In her...
The Magic of Imperfection: Why Three-Quarters Baked Work Unlocks Innovation
Perfectionism has a good reputation in the workplace. It signals high standards, discipline, and care. But in practice, it often does the opposite...
Giving Feedback to Your Manager With Clarity and Confidence
Giving feedback to your manager can feel awkward. Power dynamics are real, and when trust is still building, it is easy to second-guess yourself or stay quiet. But healthy working relationships require open dialogue in both directions. Upward feedback is not disrespectful. It is often necessary.
In this installment of the Transform Your Workplace video series, we focus on how to give your manager feedback in a calm, clear, and collaborative way. The microlearning video embedded below walks through a simple approach to help you prepare and speak up effectively.
Why People-First Leadership Still Works in Brick-and-Mortar Retail
When Brianne Mees started Tender Loving Empire in 2007, she spent most days behind a small retail counter, learning in real time what it meant to...
Using Curiosity to Navigate Difficult Conversations
Let’s start with a simple truth. A difficult conversation is not just one that feels uncomfortable. It is one in which understanding, or the...
The Quiet Work of Human-Centered Leadership
Nae Hakala works as an HR business partner here at Xenium and consults with organizations navigating complex people challenges. Over the course of...
Why Compensation Structure Isn’t Optional Anymore
For years, many organizations have gotten by making pay decisions on the fly—reacting to what candidates ask for, matching counteroffers, or relying...
How to Prepare for Difficult Conversations Using the PACE Framework
Let’s be real. Difficult conversations are part of leadership. Whether you’re advocating for your team, negotiating a role or pay change, or giving...
Employee Spotlight: Kasey Miller on Consultative Sales, Variety, and Growing Xenium’s Reach
If you’ve ever wondered how a company first gets to know Xenium, chances are the conversation starts with Kasey Miller. Kasey has a rare...
How to Build a Future-Ready Organization
Jacob Morgan hadn’t planned to write a new book. Instead, he’d planned an update of his 2017 book, The Employee Experience Advantage. When Wiley...
How to Build a Human-Centric Culture in High-Performance Workplaces
Kate McKinnon has spent her career inside organizations where culture doesn’t get the luxury of being theoretical. These are environments where...
The Case for Curiosity: Why Wonder Might Be the Most Undervalued Skill in the Modern Workplace
There’s a quiet truth about adulthood that rarely gets said out loud. Most of us stopped being curious a long time ago. We traded why for...
Employee Spotlight: Annie Oxenfeld
When I sat down with Annie Oxenfeld, I was reminded why her perspective carries so much weight at Xenium. With over a decade of experience here and...
Return-to-Office Can’t Fix Broken Work
For the past few years, leaders across industries have clung to a deceptively simple idea: if people just come back to the office, innovation,...
Catching People Doing Things Right: The Leadership Legacy of Ken Blanchard
When I sat down with Martha Lawrence on the day she launched Catch People Doing Things Right: How Ken Blanchard Changed the Way the World Leads, it...
When Caregiving Comes to Work: What Leaders Need to Know About Alzheimer’s, Dementia, and the People They Impact
For most of us, Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia exist at a distance until the day they don’t. A parent repeats the same question three times...
Why HR Leaders Are Burning Out—and How to Stop Absorbing the Shock
Human Resources has shifted from an administrative oversight role to a strategic partner, and now, amidst economic and workforce shifts, HR leaders...
Leaders Who Ignore Their Inner World Eventually Hit a Wall. Here Is How to Change Course.
Most leaders burn out not due to lack of skill or ambition, but because they stop listening to themselves. They trade intuition for output,...
Designing in Layers: How an Architect-CEO Builds Creative, High-Growth Organizations
The Art and Architecture of Leadership When Larry Armstrong talks about leadership, he doesn’t reach for a spreadsheet or an org chart. Instead, he...
Employee Spotlight: Leading with Precision and Purpose — Meet Our Director of Business Operations, Dena Laws
When you think of the engine that keeps Xenium running smoothly behind the scenes, you’re thinking of Dena. She leads with a calm, analytical...
Out of Sight, Still Essential: Reconnecting with the Frontline Workforce
When communication strategist Victoria Dew discusses workforce communication, she describes two parallel realities that rarely intersect. During...
How Emotional Bravery Transforms Leadership and Culture
One truth stood out when I spoke with Claude Silver, Chief Heart Officer at VaynerX: leading with humanity is not a soft skill. It is a strategic...
How to Make External HR a Force Multiplier for Your Team
Executives often bring outside HR expertise to accelerate change or close capability gaps. Internal HR leaders sometimes read that move as a...
Wellness 2.0: Building a Sustainable Workplace Culture
When Danielle Dinkelman, Co-founder and CEO of Advanced Corporate Wellness (ACW), talks about wellness, she doesn’t start with gym memberships or...
Building “Embodied Safety” at Work: A Practical Blueprint for Leaders
The most challenging leadership problems often masquerade as simple ones. Safety looks obvious until you widen the lens and see how physiology,...
Leading Calmly in Chaotic Times: A Conversation
In a world where change moves faster than people can process it, calm leadership is becoming a rare art. I recently sat down with Nir Megnazi,...
Employee Spotlight: Emily Etherington
I sat down with Emily Etherington to talk about her journey at Xenium, what lights her up about HR...
Work Here Now: Building a Human-Centered Workplace in the Age of AI
When Melissa Swift published Work Here Now: Think Like a Human and Build a Powerhouse Workplace, her goal was to expose the ways the everyday...
What Good Leaders Can Learn From Bad Bosses
Organizations do not suffer from bad leadership because malevolence suddenly takes over a manager's body. More often, capable people are placed in...
Nicole Blevins on HR’s Relationship With Executives
In the age of instant virality, leaders' private decisions no longer stay private. Several weeks ago, a CEO and his chief people officer were caught...
“Leaders Are Gardeners”: How Wes Adams Teaches Managers to Grow Meaning at Work
My discussion with Wes Adams explored one of the most important questions in leadership today: how purpose translates into performance. Wes...
“Treat AI Like a Teammate”: Lessons on Modern People Leadership from Nextdoor’s Bryan Power
I’ve had hundreds of conversations with leaders about workplace transformation, but few have been as wide-ranging and refreshingly candid as my...
Navigating the Future of Employee Benefits: Insights from Hub International’s 2025 Outlook
Employee benefits are at a critical crossroads. Rising costs, new technologies, and shifting employee expectations are forcing employers to rethink...
Employee Spotlight: Ayani Yapa Bandera
Ayani Yapa Bandera has served as an Onsite HR Generalist at Xenium for nearly three years, building a strong strategic partnership with Far West...
It’s All in Your Head: Rethinking Psychology’s Place in How We Lead
Interviewing Barry Wolfe about his book It’s All in Your Head: Why Psychology Doesn’t Help Your Workforce Deliver Value felt like holding up a...
How to Spend a $100,000 HR Budget in a 50-Person Company
Small businesses live and die by how well they manage people with limited resources. Give an HR leader $100,000, and you force trade-offs: buy...
Style Is More Than Clothes: How Personal Branding Can Transform Your Workplace
When I sat down with Jenny Eversole, co-founder and CEO of StyleSpace, one thing became clear right away: style is about much more than what we...
Redefining Mental Health at Work: A Conversation with Sarah Harris
When I sat down with Sarah Harris, a licensed clinical social worker turned workplace culture consultant, I was struck by how her career path...
What’s in a Name? The Overlooked Key to Workplace Belonging
Most organizations say they want an inclusive culture. They invest in diversity, equity, and belonging initiatives, train managers on empathy, and...
Whispering with Stakeholders: Why Listening Beats Order Taking
When Bill Shander joined me on the Transform Your Workplace podcast, our conversation centered on his new book, Stakeholder Whispering: Uncover What...
The Power of the Pause: How to Respond Instead of React
In our fast-paced, high-pressure world, most of us struggle to slow down—especially in moments that matter most. Cynthia Kane, author of The Pause...
How AI-Native Learning Platforms Will Rewrite Corporate Training
Corporate learning has long been trapped in a "course‐centric" mindset. Build a curriculum, upload it into a learning management system, send...
Stop the Drift: How to Lead with Support, Clarity, and Trust
Michael Wozniak knows firsthand how fast a team can lose its way when leadership becomes purely transactional. As an executive during the NBA’s...
Employee Spotlight: Tracy Callan on Employee Relations, HR Evolution, and Leading with Care
From the moment I met Tracy, I could see her deep sense of care for her team and clients, and for doing the right thing, even when it's hard. Her...
Termination with Humanity: Leading Through Layoffs with Empathy and Transparency
Layoffs are never easy. As leaders, we do everything in our power to avoid them. But when economic pressures mount or funding falls short, sometimes...
Bridging the Gap with Gen Z: Why Communication, Clarity, and Curiosity Are the Leadership Skills of the Future
In our recent discussion, Marcia Homer offered a refreshingly practical perspective on what Gen Z needs from today’s leaders and how organizations...
Why Technical Expertise Isn’t Enough: Helping STEM Professionals Become Better Communicators
As someone who has always considered myself more technical than expressive, I’ve wrestled with anxiety any time I’m asked to present in front of a...
