Performance Impacts

10/19/2026

Your next great hire may already work for you.

Many organizations are already investing in internal mobility. LHH's 2026 research found that 77% of HR leaders say their organizations offer targeted redeployment and mobility programs.
That's encouraging.

The opportunity is in making sure employees can see, understand, and use what's already there.
Because in that same research, only 19% of employees said they experience or recognize those internal mobility opportunities.

For leaders, that gap is worth paying attention to.
Not because another program is necessarily needed, but because the pathways that already exist may need to become more visible and more actionable for their employees.

That can start with some very practical things:
- Making sure mangers understand where opportunities exist.
- Bringing career and growth conversations into regular one-on-ones.
- Helping employees understand the skills and experiences they need for future roles. - Creating opportunities for people to build those skills before a position ever opens.

Internal mobility works best when it becomes more than a program employees know exists.
It becomes a conversation they know how to have and path they can see themselves taking.

A good question for leadership teams might be:
If one of your strongest employees wanted to grow within your organization today, would they know what opportunities are available to them, and what they would need to do next?

Source: LHH, The Mobility Breakdown: Redeployment and Outplacement Trends Report, 2026

10/15/2026

A strong executive team can be one of an organization's greatest assets. But alignment at the top doesn't automatically create alignment throughout the organization.
We saw that in recent work with a client.

The executive team came to the table with a strong 3–5 year strategic vision, deep expertise, genuine respect for one another and a shared commitment to the organization's mission.

There was a lot that was working well. There were also signals worth paying attention to and many fundamental strengths to build upon.

Culture Risks:
- Engagement was dropping at the manager level.
- Turnover was higher among employees reporting to managers.
- Functional silos were making it harder to align around broader organization priorities and shared measures of success.

The opportunity wasn't to replace what was working.
It was to use those existing leadership and culture assets to strengthen what needed to evolve.

That can mean:
- Getting underneath the engagement and turnover data to understand root causes.
- Creating greater consistency around leadership expectations and development.
- Building shared measures of success across functions.
- Helping managers see, and communicate, how the work of their teams connects to the larger strategy.
Culminating in… Building High Performing Teams across the entire organization

Because an organization can have an excellent strategy and a highly aligned executive team and still struggle to execute if that alignment doesn't travel.

The manager level is often the bridge:
- It's where enterprise strategy becomes team priorities.
- Where leadership expectations become daily behavior.
- Where culture is experienced by employees, and ultimately, where strategy becomes culture.

We're grateful to work alongside an organization whose mission has such a meaningful impact, and we're excited to continue the work of helping its people and strategy move forward together.

10/13/2026

When a manager's team grows, their role grows too.

Gallup reports that the average number of direct reports per U.S. manager increased from 10.0 in 2024 to 12.1 in 2025, nearly 50% higher than when Gallup first measured in 2013.

Bigger teams aren't automatically a problem.
But adding people without reconsidering the manager's role can be.

More direct reports mean more people to coach, develop, support and hold accountable, often while the manager is still carrying significant individual-contributor responsibilities as well. Gallup found that 97% of managers maintain some individual-contributor responsibilities, and managers spend a median of 40% of their time on that work.

So when a span of control changes, the question is not simply:
How many people can this manager manage?

The question becomes:
What does this manager need in order to lead this team well?

That means looking at their role:
- What are they accountable for today?
- What support does the larger team require?
- What can come off their plate?
- Do they still have the capacity for meaningful coaching and feedback?

There isn't one universally "right" team size.
Gallup's research reinforces that manager capability, workload, engagement and the nature of the work all matter.

The goal doesn't have to be smaller teams.
The goal should be making sure the manager's role keeps pace with the team it's being asked to lead.

For leadership teams, one question worth asking is:
When was the last time you redesigned a manager's role after redesigning their team?

Source: Gallup, Span of Control: What's the Optimal Team Size for Managers?, 2026

10/01/2026

AI adoption is a leadership initiative.

We see organizations put a lot of energy into selecting AI tools. And we are increasingly interested in what happens after these tools arrive...

How are your leaders leading through AI transformation?

Gallup found that employees whose managers actively support AI use are 1.7 times more likely to use AI tools a few times per week or more.

That information tells us something important:
AI adoption doesn't happen because someone sends an email announcing a new platform.

People need help answering much more individualized and practical questions:

Where should I use it?
Where shouldn't I?
What does good judgment look like now?
What am I still accountable for?
How is my role changing?
What skills become more important, not less, as AI takes on more of the work?

Those aren't technology questions alone. They are leadership questions. They are talent development questions. They are Workforce Planning questions.

The organizations that get AI right won't just have better tools. They'll have leaders who can help people make sense of what the tools change.

What is your organization doing to tap into the incredible leaders you have who are early adopters of AI? And, how are you leveraging them and those with a Growth Mindset to elevate your AI Leadership as you evolve?



Source: Gallup, Employee Engagement Strategies for 2026

09/30/2026

There’s still time to put your name in the drawing! 🎟️

We’re giving away 4 tickets to the Musial Awards, a night celebrating sportsmanship, character and people who inspire us.

Comment INSPIRE below to enter. We’ll draw and announce the winner Monday, October 5th!

09/29/2026

Engagement gets very local, very quickly.

We tend to talk about engagement as an organization-wide strategy, opportunity and challenge:
Culture. Benefits. Recognition programs. Employee experience...

All important.

But Gallup has consistently found that managers account for 70% of the variance in team level engagement.

That makes engagement much more local than we sometimes treat it.

Employees experience the organization through the person setting expectations, giving feedback, recognizing good work, making decisions and talking with them about their development.

So, when engagement is slipping, let's look beyond the engagement survey, let's look at the manager experience as well...

Do our managers know how to lead these conversations? Have we given them the time and support to do it well? Are we mentoring them to elevate how they lead others?

That's often where the more useful conversation begins.

Source: Gallup, Manager Development

09/24/2026

Are we giving our managers time to actually LEAD?

Here's a leadership development problem we don't talk enough about:
We train our managers to coach, develop and engage their people... then we send them back into roles that leave very little room for them to do it. Many managers have 8, 10, 15 direct reports and struggle to find time to dedicate to each of them. This is something we hear often in our coaching calls.

Deloitte found that managers spend nearly 40% of their time solving immediate problems and handling administrative work and just 13% of their time developing the people they lead.
That isn't simply a manager capability issue. That's an organizational design issue.

If we say developing people is part of a manager's job, we also have to look at what competes with it:
Meeting load. Administrative work. Decision rights. Firefighting...
What gets rewarded when deadlines get tight?

Before adding more for our managers/leaders to own, let's ask:
What would have to change in the way our managers work in order for them to actually lead the way we are asking them to?

Development needs dedicated time. It also needs room for planned and adhoc development discussions.

Source: Deloitte, 2025 Global Human Capital Trends

09/22/2026

A succession plan can tell you who has potential. It takes planning, mentoring and development to get them ready.

DDI's Global Leadership Forecast found that high-potential individual contributors are 3.7 times more likely to leave within a year when their manager doesn't regularly provide opportunities for growth & development.

Organizations sometimes identify high-potential talent and assume that the hard part is done. It isn't.
The real development happens afterward...

Who gets exposure to a different part of the business? Who gets to make a decision before they're completely comfortable making it? Who receives the candid feedback? Who gets to practice leading before there's a leadership title attached? How can we create opportunities for leaders and emerging leaders to have setbacks and learn from those?

Succession planning identifies the bench. Development builds it.

One question to put on the leadership team's agenda: If one of our critical roles opened tomorrow, who could realistically step in, and what are we doing now to make that person more ready six months from today?

Source: DDI, Global Leadership Forecast 2025

09/10/2026

What we celebrate says something about what we value.

The Musial Awards recognize more than achievement in sports; they celebrate character, integrity, courage, and the way we show up for others.

Those are qualities that matter far beyond the field or court. They matter in leadership, in our organizations, and in our communities.

This year's Musial Awards will be especially meaningful as Billie Jean King receives the Stan Musial Lifetime Achievement Awards for Sportsmanship, recognizing a career and legacy that have changed both sports and society.

Karrie is proud to serve on the board of the St. Louis Sports Commission, which produces the Musial Awards alongside the National Sportsmanship Foundation, and we are thrilled to be able to give away four tickets to this event to someone in our community.

If you'd like to attend, comment INSPIRE below and we will add your name to the drawing.

We will select the winner October 1st.

The Musial Awards
Saturday, November 21, 2026
Stifel Theatre, St. Louis

Thank you to presenting sponsor Maryville University and the St. Louis Sports Commission for continuing to bring an evening centered on sportsmanship, character and inspiration to St. Louis.

We can't think of a better event to share.

Good luck!

What we do: Accelerate Executive Leadership, Strategic Planning, Transforming Cultures, Organizational Strategies, Leadership talent and MORE!

09/07/2026

Happy Labor Day from Performance Impacts!

Today, we celebrate the hard work, dedication and contributions of people everywhere. We hope you enjoy a safe and restful holiday.