The Elephant in the Boardroom

Terri Long and Jeremy Eden

Are you struggling to improve organizational effectiveness, make better business decisions, and drive profit growth? Join us for "The Elephant in the Boardroom," the Business Insights Podcast. Discover proven leadership strategies that have helped Fortune 1000 executives increase profits through fact-based decision-making, financial discipline, and human intelligence. Learn why corporate boards fail, how to build genuine employee buy-in, and implement effective expense management. It's time to confront the inefficiencies in your organization by addressing the elephants in your boardroom.

  1. Why Employees Stay Silent: 14 Barriers Killing Innovation at Work

    ٢ ديسمبر

    Why Employees Stay Silent: 14 Barriers Killing Innovation at Work

    If you think your people "don’t have ideas," you’re wrong. They have thousands—you’re just not hearing them. Jeremy Eden and Terri Long walk through 14 reasons employees stay silent, from fear of looking foolish to decision-makers playing corporate whack-a-mole. You’ll learn how to create incentives, safety, and processes that help great ideas surface before consultants have to dig them out. Highlights Why leaders misjudge their employees’ creativity and commitmentThe real risks employees see when they suggest changesHow lack of access, analysis help, and collaboration blocks ideasWhy habit and normalization hide obvious problemsThe impact of "that’s not my job" and limited big-picture understandingHow to move beyond a small "go-to" group and involve more peopleConnect Learn more: HarvestEarnings.comEmail: info@HarvestEarnings.com(00:00) Employees have ideas—so why hire consultants? (02:30) No upside, real risk: why people stay quiet (04:15) Fear of looking foolish or exposing the boss (05:10) No access to decision-makers (06:00) Ideas need analysis and collaboration (07:30) Disengagement and “not my problem” (08:40) Getting used to bad processes (09:55) No training or priority for ideas (10:30) Corporate “whack-a-mole” decision-making (11:20) “Nobody listens anyway” (12:10) “That’s not my job” and staying in your lane (13:10) Missing the big picture and process view (14:30) Only a few people own “continuous improvement” (16:10) How to design a process that unlocks ideas #Leadership #Innovation #EmployeeEngagement #ContinuousImprovement #CompanyCulture #Management

    ١٩ من الدقائق
  2. ٧ أكتوبر

    One Company Strategy: Break Silos and Move Faster

    Run your organization as one company, not many. This episode shares a practical one-company strategy to break silos and move faster with real examples from Goldman Sachs, Heinz, Fidelity, Nordstrom, Walmart, Apple, Sony, Applebee’s, and TGI Fridays. You’ll learn how shorter, scannable artifacts unlock selling time at Goldman Sachs, how factory matchmaking at Heinz turns excess capacity into savings, why over‑servicing overnight support in retail destroys ROI, and how procurement and marketing misalignment leads to waste that companies like Walmart avoid with smarter vendor partnerships. We also discuss what Apple’s unified approach got right, why Sony’s division‑driven model struggled by comparison, and how brand collaborations like Applebee’s and TGI Fridays' product licensing demonstrate cross‑team wins that compound. What you’ll learn The cost of silos and a repeatable one-company operating modelArtifact upgrades that speed decisions and reduce busyworkA 60‑minute “speed collaborating” format any team can runIncentives and recognition that make collaboration the defaultHow to align procurement, R&D, marketing, and operations around shared outcomes Chapters: (00:00) Intro (00:32) Why companies don’t act as one company (01:26) Glassdoor example at Fidelity (02:30) Why silos happen and how they hurt execution (03:09) Goldman Sachs binder problem and the “Chinese wall” myth (04:25) Fix: shorter report formats approved by audit/legal (05:31) Heinz Europe: 30 factories, siloed awareness (07:07) Heinz US: cross-division collaboration and licensing idea (08:07) Applebee’s/TGI Fridays licensing to retail (Walmart pitch) (09:21) Heinz “dices in tomato sauce”: smaller dices reduce downtime, boost sales (12:06) Retail call center: overnight support analysis and right‑sizing (14:47) Service design notes and the Nordstrom piano anecdote (15:29) SKU chaos: frozen pizza pepperoni consolidation to cut costs (17:29) Procurement vs. product assumptions and vendor poster waste (18:52) Poster fix: custom counts beat blanket seven‑poster orders (19:23) Force multiplier: talk across divisions to find simple wins (20:25) Cross‑pollinate managers to break silo thinking (21:07) Apple vs. Sony: unified org vs. divisions (Walter Isaacson insight) (22:02) Speed collaborating: 10–20 minute cross‑team rotations (22:58) Budget challenge: make cost‑imposers justify requirements (23:33) Steering committee: shared visibility to spark collaboration (24:38) Incentives: align bonuses to shared goals, not divisions (26:03) Recognize cross‑team wins to reinforce behavior (26:38) Boots‑on‑the‑ground rule for new projects This episode is great for leaders and operators who want faster execution, fewer handoffs, and better customer experiences, especially at enterprise scale, where silos form easily #breaksilos #collaboration #incentives #operating #customerexperience , #costsavings #governance #steeringcommittee #speedcollaborating #goldmansachs #heinz #Fidelity #Nordstrom #Walmart #Apple #Sony #applebees #tgifridays Learn more at harvestearnings.com Subscribe for practical leadership episodes and templates. Share this with a teammate who owns reporting, service ops, or procurement; they’ll thank you later.

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  3. Culture Transformation: How McKinsey's 5 Bold Moves Undermine Company Success

    ٢٦ أغسطس

    Culture Transformation: How McKinsey's 5 Bold Moves Undermine Company Success

    Most culture transformation strategies waste millions and fail spectacularly. In this episode, we expose McKinsey's viral "5 Bold Moves to Transform Your Organization's Culture" and reveal why conventional culture change approaches destroy company value rather than create it. Terri and Jeremy dissect each of McKinsey's recommendations—from "don't just tell, show" to "shake it up, all of it"—explaining why these feel-good approaches fail in Fortune 500 environments. You'll discover the critical psychology behind behavior-first change management and why implementing the right behaviors (with clear benefits) works better than waiting for voluntary engagement. Key insights you'll gain: Why voluntary engagement programs backfire in large organizationsThe engineering approach to culture change that actually worksReal case studies from $5 billion in client transformation projectsHow different departments need radically different cultural attributesWhy values posters and employee surveys waste time and moneyFeatured story: How we transformed IT culture at a major corporation using "speed costing"—forcing teams to abandon their beloved Agile process for rapid decision-making. Initial resistance transformed into enthusiastic adoption within 10 days when people experienced the results. Based on 25+ years leading operational excellence projects at companies like H.J. Heinz and PNC Financial Services. This isn't theory—it's battle-tested methodology from the trenches of corporate transformation. Connect with Harvest Earnings:📧 Email: info@harvestearnings.com🌐 Website: harvestearnings.com💼 LinkedIn: Follow Terri Long and Jeremy Eden Love what you heard? Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a 5-star review—it helps other executives discover practical alternatives to expensive consulting fluff. (00:00) Introduction: McKinsey Culture Transformation Problem (01:40) Culture Transformation: Don't Just Tell Show (04:15) McKinsey's Voluntary Engagement Myth Exposed (07:00) Speed Costing: Real Culture Change Example (08:04) Hidden Influencers: McKinsey's Impossible Advice (10:05) Personal Holistic Support: Culture Fluff (12:02) Shake It Up: Rituals vs Culture (15:14) Engineering Behaviors Creates Real Culture (20:38) McKinsey Culture Advice: Why It Fails (24:17) Different Teams Need Different Cultures (26:01) Culture Transformation: Real Solutions Summary #CultureTransformation #McKinseyAdvice #OrganizationalChange #EmployeeEngagement #CorporateCulture #BusinessTransformation #ChangeManagement #WorkplaceCulture #OperationalExcellence #CompanyCulture #CultureChange #BusinessConsulting #LeadershipStrategy #BehaviorChange #CulturalEngineering The Elephant in the Boardroom: Where we challenge conventional business wisdom and share advice you can actually use.

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Are you struggling to improve organizational effectiveness, make better business decisions, and drive profit growth? Join us for "The Elephant in the Boardroom," the Business Insights Podcast. Discover proven leadership strategies that have helped Fortune 1000 executives increase profits through fact-based decision-making, financial discipline, and human intelligence. Learn why corporate boards fail, how to build genuine employee buy-in, and implement effective expense management. It's time to confront the inefficiencies in your organization by addressing the elephants in your boardroom.

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