Emily Schneider says one of the most steadying things a leader can tell their people in an uncertain year is "I don't know," as long as it comes with what you're doing about it and a commitment to work through it together.

Emily is a fractional COO with more than 25 years of experience in B2B and B2C companies, from startups to $300 million in revenue. She and Mickey Anderson talk about what she looks for when a company keeps missing its objectives and the CEO is sure the answer is more process.

In this episode:

• Why a "sales problem" usually turns out to involve marketing, client experience and product, and how a short conversation with each department shows it
• Why your people and your customers are the two best sources of answers you already have
• Why leaders who have grown out of startup mode need to slow down, and what that does for how their people see them
• What happens when a leader says out loud what they're struggling with, and why people pull harder in response
• Why Emily listens to every person before she tries to fix anything, and why she tells her people she'd rather they try and get it wrong

Connect with Emily Schneider
If something isn't working in your business and you can't work out why, Emily works out what's driving it, what needs to change and how to make it happen.
Website: https://www.es-cx.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emilymarieschneider/

About UNLEASHED: UNLEASHED is the podcast from LoyaltyOps for leaders building businesses that last in a decade no one is prepared for. Host Mickey Anderson talks with leaders about what they are building, the decisions behind it, and what they are betting on next, and in solo episodes she takes one problem from inside growing organizations and shows what to do about it.

Book A Discovery Call with LoyaltyOps: https://loyaltyops.com/book

Subscribe to UNLEASHED for new episodes every Thursday.

Want to be a guest on UNLEASHED? Apply here: https://unleashed.loyaltyops.com/apply

Marketing has a plan built around lead volume, sales has one built around close rate, and customer success has one built around retention, and the three leaders never sat down to build those plans together, even though each one depends on the others.

• Why plans built inside each function can hit every target and still miss the growth plan, and what research published in Harvard Business Review found when it studied 95 cross-functional teams
• The six parts of a brief to send 48 hours before a session, from the objective to the assumptions nobody has tested
• How to run the session well, with respectful disagreement, time boxes and small breakouts, and what research on devil's advocate and genuine dissent means for your meetings
• Why working across functions is a skill, and how to run three to five practice rounds with an after action review after each one
• One thing to try this week: pick one objective or problem that crosses two or more functions, send the leaders involved a one-page brief 48 hours ahead, and book 60 minutes to work on it together

About UNLEASHED: UNLEASHED is the podcast from LoyaltyOps for leaders building businesses that last in a decade no one is prepared for. Host Mickey Anderson talks with leaders about what they are building, the decisions behind it, and what they are betting on next, and in solo episodes she takes one problem from inside growing organizations and shows what to do about it.

Book A Discovery Call with LoyaltyOps: https://loyaltyops.com/book
Get the free leadership frameworks: https://loyaltyops.com/free-resources

Subscribe to UNLEASHED for new episodes every Thursday.

When Clark Ingram took over people operations at a hospital, turnover dropped 40 percent in six months.

He did it as a self-described finance guy who got thrown into HR and is convinced most companies misread the whole problem. As he puts it, culture eats strategy for breakfast, but employee turnover eats culture for breakfast.

In this episode, Clark makes the case that about half of a company's turnover is created by HR itself, why his first move is always to stop the bleeding before anything else, and why the real root causes of turnover live several layers below the surface, where no AI tool can find them. He shares the story of unknowingly training his own competition, the small compensation fix that stopped it cold, and why he holds HR to a zero-turnover standard the same way a factory holds itself to zero defects. Along the way, you will hear why values fall apart the moment one leader stops living them, and what it actually takes to keep good people through this AI decade.

Clark Ingram is the founder of People Profits and the CHRO of Littleton Regional Healthcare. A finance leader by background, he was pulled into HR by a CEO frustrated with relentless turnover, and he has since helped multiple organizations cut turnover by more than 40 percent and stabilize workforces others had written off as unfixable. His new book, Churn, lays out the process step by step.

Learn more from Clark at People Profits: https://peopleprofits.com or https://clarkingram.com
Get his book Churn: Proven Strategies to Overcome Failing Conventional Talent Management and Achieve Zero Turnover, on Amazon and wherever books are sold.
Find Clark on LinkedIn: Clark A. Ingram

About UNLEASHED: UNLEASHED is the podcast for business owners building companies that last in a decade no one is prepared for. Host Mickey Anderson talks with founders and operators about what they are building, the decisions behind it, and what they are betting on next.

Subscribe to UNLEASHED for new episodes every Thursday.