SparkEffect

05/19/2026

"People don't mind change. They just don't like being changed."

That's Scott McInnes on the latest episode of Courage to Advance, and it might be the cleanest summary of why so many culture initiatives stall.

Scott is the founder of Inspiring Change, a Dublin-based consultancy that shapes culture and develops leaders across Ireland and Europe. His firm surveyed chief people officers across Ireland to find out what's actually getting in the way of building strong, aligned cultures. The result was five recurring challenges, most of them the same ones organizations were facing a decade ago.

Kim Bohr sat down with Scott to compare his Irish research with SparkEffect's Trust in Turbulence™ findings from the US. The through-line, on both sides of the Atlantic: trust is the connective tissue, and middle managers are the ones who carry it.

Scott calls them chief sense makers. We'd add: they're also the place where culture either compounds or collapses.

🎧 Listen now on your favorite platform!

05/12/2026

Most leadership advice assumes everyone on your team is okay. What happens when they're not?

This week on Courage to Advance, Kim sits down with Dr. Gretchen Schmelzer, Harvard-trained psychologist, two-time national rowing champion, and co-founder of the Center for Trauma and Leadership, for a conversation about what leaders are actually carrying right now, and what most leadership development gets wrong about it.

A few of the threads worth listening for:
The difference between trauma and moral injury, and why the second one is what's quietly burning out your most mission-driven people.

The three forms of repeated trauma: what happened, the protections people built to survive it, and what didn't happen. Why that third one is often the work an organization has to make up for years later.

Why the survival strategies that catapult people into leadership (working hard, not asking for help, perfectionism) are the same ones that derail them once they get there.

And the reframe Gretchen would want every leader to take with them: stress management isn't about feeling good. It's about being able to access your full cognitive capacity in the moments that matter most.

Listen now: https://bit.ly/42kgMzF

05/05/2026

Trust isn't a soft metric. It's a structural advantage, and some of its loudest signals are hiding in plain sight.

Our President and CEO Kim Bohr recently joined Brent Skinner on https://bit.ly/4teLQvm's Future of Payroll and Workforce Management podcast for a conversation on what's quietly shaping fairness, trust, and the employee experience right now, including why caregiving benefits are showing up as one of the strongest signals of workplace fairness.

It's a great listen for HR, payroll, and people leaders thinking beyond the policy layer and into what actually builds (or breaks) trust through change.

🎧 Listen: https://bit.ly/4cWP8gI

📄 Related reading from Kim on https://bit.ly/4teLQvm: Caregiving Benefits Among the Strongest Signals of Workplace Fairness and Trust → https://bit.ly/4d7Yhn1

05/01/2026

Nina Froriep made a point in her conversation with Kim Bohr that's hard to argue with: most leaders only activate their network when they need something. By then, the relationships have gone cold.

Our latest blog post breaks down what Nina calls the infrastructure you build while things are good, so it's there when things aren't.

It's practical, it's short, and it will make you look at your LinkedIn profile differently.

04/29/2026

You don't have to post every day.

You don't have to go viral.

You just have to show up.

That's what Nina Froriep told Kim Bohr in this episode of Courage to Advance. Nina is an Emmy-winning producer who spent years making other people look extraordinary on camera for Oprah. Then the industry shifted and she had to turn that lens on herself.

What she found surprised her. The less produced she was, the more people trusted her. Sharing her dog, her photography, her life between Switzerland and New York built deeper connections than any polished professional content ever did.

Her advice for leaders who've been putting off their professional presence:

Once a week is enough. Pick three personal things you're comfortable sharing. Respond to people who comment like you'd respond to someone at a dinner party. That's it.

The algorithm rewards consistency. So do people.

What's stopping you from showing up this week?

Listen to the full converstation here: https://bit.ly/4mYyGBj

04/29/2026

The strongest growth we see doesn't come from adopting a different style. It comes from getting clearer on what's already there.

The people who leave a lasting mark have one thing in common. They've taken time to understand what they value, where they're strongest, and the impact they want to make.

That's the heart of our Leadership Development series with Richard Mirabile, PhD. Each session turns self-awareness into something practical you can use Monday morning.

If you'd rather show up with intention than imitation, this one's for you

04/28/2026

You don't have to post every day.

You don't have to go viral.

You just have to show up.

That's what Nina Froriep told Kim Bohr in this episode of Courage to Advance. Nina is an Emmy-winning producer who spent years making other people look extraordinary on camera for Oprah. Then the industry shifted and she had to turn that lens on herself.

What she found surprised her. The less produced she was, the more people trusted her. Sharing her dog, her photography, her life between Switzerland and New York built deeper connections than any polished professional content ever did.

Her advice for leaders who've been putting off their professional presence:

Once a week is enough. Pick three personal things you're comfortable sharing. Respond to people who comment like you'd respond to someone at a dinner party. That's it.

The algorithm rewards consistency. So do people.

What's stopping you from showing up this week?

Listen to the full converstation here: https://bit.ly/4mDVhmL

04/27/2026

Here's something most people don't know about coaching:

When a coach shows up calm and regulated, the leader's nervous system starts to match it.

Heart rates sync. Breathing patterns align. Not because anyone decided to. Because that's how human biology works.

Scientists call it co-regulation. And it's the foundation of trust.

This is what we mean when we talk about the science of trust in coaching. It's not a metaphor. It's measurable.

A recent pilot study placed sensors on coaches and coachees during real sessions. They found that neural activity between the two actually synchronizes, especially during trust-building and discussion phases.

And here's the part that matters for organizations investing in coaching:

The approach your coach uses determines what happens in the leader's brain. Vision-focused coaching activates motivation, openness, and resilience. Problem-focused coaching triggers stress and shuts down the capacity for change.

Same person. Same intention to help. Completely different brain response.

We put the full research together in a free ebook.

The Science of Trust in Coaching: How Human Connection Transforms Leaders

Get your copy here:

Download the free ebook: The Science of Trust in Coaching. Discover how neuroscience reveals the biological connection between coach and leader, and why it matters for coaching ROI.

04/25/2026

We serve hundreds of people in career transition at any given time. Yet participants consistently tell us they feel like our only client. That's intentional.

While some providers scale through automation and self-service tools, we scale through exceptional coaching and genuine human attention. Your employees won't feel like a number in our system because we refuse to treat them that way.

Discover what white glove transition support really looks like. Get in touch: https://bit.ly/4tZJH7X

04/24/2026

𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲'𝘀 𝗮 𝗯𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗲𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗿𝘂𝗻𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵 𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗼𝗿𝗴𝗮𝗻𝗶𝘇𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗴𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝗻𝗼𝗶𝘀𝗲: 𝗶𝗳 𝗮𝗻 𝗲𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗼𝘆𝗲𝗲 𝗶𝘀𝗻'𝘁 𝗺𝗼𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱, 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁'𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺.

Daniela Tancau spent 18 years diagnosing how much damage that assumption does.

In our 𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗯𝗹𝗼𝗴 𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁, we break down why low engagement is rarely a people problem and almost always a listening problem, what a structured interview surfaces that no anonymous survey ever will, and why meeting even a few employee expectations, not all of them, measurably changes how people show up at work.

𝗜𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘀𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗳𝗹𝗮𝘁 𝗼𝗿 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗯𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗸𝗲𝗲𝗽 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴, 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗵 𝗮 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱.

https://bit.ly/4dYZaQP

Most organizations treat low engagement as an employee issue. Daniela Tancau's 18 years of HR research says otherwise. Here's what structured interviews reveal that surveys never will.