Evergreen Leadership

03/30/2026

This 🌏 map represents the magic of NAVIGATION — Bridgestone’s global leadership program.
⬆️ Imagine 40 brilliant leaders with roots in 20+ countries converging in the eternal city of Rome 🇮🇹 to share their wisdom and stretch each other to the limit!
⬆️ Then Gina Rattan, a former Broadway Director 🎭 turned leadership Jedi, takes center stage to help us transcend “dealing with ambiguity” to embracing it with vulnerability, curiosity and agility!
⬆️ Add a tour of the R&D tech center and the testing tracks where 🏎️ Lamborghinis and Ferraris are pushing the limits of the latest 🛞 tires!
⬆️ Hats off to Jade Doyle and Titus Roybal who have tailored every part of this 8-month journey to the unique vision, values and context of Bridgestone.
⬆️ And to the real stars ⭐️ of this show, the 40 global 🌎 leaders who have become lifelong friends and mentors! 👏👏👏

11/06/2025

What do a Zoo 🦜Director, a Deputy City Manager, a ⚡️ Utility 🔋expert and 30 other leaders have in common? They skillfully serve the residents of Palo Alto CA, the birthplace of Silicon Valley. They also are part of the newly evolved Leadership Academy. So grateful to be part of the team with Nicholas Raisch and Vicky Lien. It's inspiring learning about every service that helps this iconic city thrive and evolve!

11/04/2025

What’s sweeter than working in an ice 🍨 cream 🍦 factory and tasting the secret new flavors for 2026? Making a new friend in Skyla Kiel and watching the Site Leadership Team accelerate Trust, Candor, Commitment and Got-Your-Back Feedback! Shout out to Karmen Tai for giving me the chance to serve her and her team.

10/28/2025

I had a bucket list moment in Vegas yesterday. No, I didn't win $1 million 💰 but I got to work with a brand that means more than that to me🙌🏻. Let me explain.
I was born on the south side of Chicago into a violent home. There were four of us kids from 3 different marriages living in an 864-square-foot home. And it was a powder keg. When I was 10 years old, I broke my big brother's glasses and my Dad knocked out my tooth. That's what we faced in those four walls. So naturally, I always went OUTSIDE and found my joy playing sports 🏀. And one of the only things that brought my family together was pro sports. When the Bears 🐻 won the Super Bowl and recorded that awful song 🎵 that I still love so much, we were all on the same page and same team. But it was short-lived...one and done.
Then this dude came to the Chicago Bulls 🏀 who literally defied gravity. He overcame obstacles, injuries and played through pain to lift himself, his family, his team, his city and his whole sport to new levels of greatness🌟. And he did that AGAIN & AGAIN & AGAIN (three-peat intended!) Kids of all kinds wanted to "Be like Mike!" And I was one of them. His grit and growth mindset still inspire me today.
Yesterday I had the privilege of leading a team session for Jeremy Bolds and Nike's JORDAN North America Leadership Team. And I can see this proud legacy is in visionary hands. Just grateful I got to spend a few minutes on the "court" with them in Vegas! It was truly priceless. And you can see, they have great taste in shoes!

10/14/2025

Greatness is fueled by feedback and feedforward. Imagine a snapshot 📸 in time from every key stakeholder sharing what’s most important 🎯 for your role, how skilled 💪 you are in those areas and how you could maximize your impact going forward. That’s what the Korn Ferry 360 Feedback Survey offers you. We’ve taken thousands of leaders on this journey at huge companies like Mars 🍫 & Bridgestone 🛞. Now my company Evergreen 🌲 Leadership has its own KF360 Assessment Center where we can help leaders grow in the most important ways. Reach out if we can serve you or your team with 360-Feedback and Development Plans that help your leaders grow where it matters most. 👏

07/01/2025

I recently facilitated a FourSight Creative Problem Solving Session for a Global Mars R&D Team.

They were given a box 🎁 of random items and they had 12 minutes to build and present a prototype. You can see the intensity 🔎 , creativity💡 and laughter 😂 ! Then we explored where each person’s energy ⚡️ rises or falls from Ideation to Implementation. And finally we took real business challenges and made speedy creative progress!

Most leaders and teams have grown in Self-Awareness but this framework also enhances Process-Awareness. How can we leverage the best of each person and stage from CLARIFY 🔍 to IDEATE 💡to DEVELOP 🔨and IMPLEMENT🏎️? Often times we may spend too much or too little time in a stage and miss the creative breakthrough or we may have team members simultaneously hitting the gas ⛽️ and the brakes 🛑 and producing unnecessary conflict or disengagement. FourSight helps teams with real tools at every stage to unlock their creative problem-solving power!

05/09/2025

Happy National Nurses Week to all of you angels 😇 in scrubs! We had the privilege of facilitating a leadership retreat for 50 leaders from Adventist Health Tillamook this week. At the head of the pack was the president Eric Swanson who was raised by an amazing Servant Leader Nurse Mother. His mom was the first professional hired when Adventist Health took over hospital operations in 1973.

Eric described growing up in the hospital: "My mom was single, and she'd get called in to do a C-section or another type of surgery, and she'd wake up my brother and I, and we'd jump in the car and come here and sleep in the lobby on the floor." Eric caught that passion for bringing healing to the hurting. He started off as a teen hospital volunteer and then worked in maintenance, mopping the floors and patching the roof. Now he's president and engaging those same Servant Leader values he learned from Mom to bring "health, wholeness and hope" to this coastal community! From Mother to Son (pictured here) and generation to generation, these leaders of rural healthcare are inspiring!

If you want to hear more stories from Eric, you can listen to my good friend Japhet De Oliveira's podcast convo with him: https://lnkd.in/gsApX6ZU

10/05/2024

If any of you are long-time United Airlines travelers, they will match your donations to charities serving hurricane survivors in the SouthEast.

Hurricane Helene has caused widespread destruction and has displaced thousands. United is donating $125,000 and 500,000 MileagePlus® miles toward Hurricane Relief efforts, but you can make our impact even greater. We will match additional donations up to $75,000 and 250,000 miles.

06/20/2024

A 7-hour layover in Munich gave me the chance to have ein fantastisches deutsches Bier 🇩🇪🍺 with a great global leader. Markus Klaehn grew up in the Black Forest and had a mind for math, a passion for business and a heart for people. He bravely stretched himself to become a CFO in Latin America, leaving Germany and learning Spanish. When he was CEO of Brenntag North America he gave me the opportunity of a lifetime to train more than 1,200 leaders across the Americas in English and Spanish. We often kicked off 3-day leadership programs by interviewing him about his journey. His rare combination of curiosity, care, strategy, drive and authenticity made us all want to follow him and be great leaders who maximized business performance always by developing greatness in people. Cheers, I mean, PROST, Markus! 🍺 🍻 👏 🇩🇪

12/20/2023

We sat around a world map last Thursday and just told stories for two hours. Jeremy Daveau grew up on a farm in rural France and most of what they produced was bought by Mars Inc. His father was so impressed with the company's principles, especially Quality and Mutuality. After business school, Jeremy went to work for Mars and they sent him to start a factory in Thailand. From there he traveled the world over 25 years building teams and developing people and selling a lot of sweet things for people and pets. We first worked together when he was President/GM of Mars/Wrigley Canada. Around the time that Jeremy was getting started at Mars France, three immigrants were starting a pastry business in Canada. They were creative, driven and cared deeply about their people. Building on those shared values, Jeremy is leading the charge at King's Pastry alongside one of the founder's daughters (Katty Ho) and other amazing leaders taking this business to new levels of growth and greatness. All great things take time to build and the greatest cultures start with great stories, great values and a love for diversity and humanity. Thank you Jeremy Daveau for letting me be part of yet another exec team building and a first-time pastry factory tour!

10/13/2023

This week I had a brilliant leader in my class who has ADHD and autism. She is twice exceptional and I saw it in her keen insights and unconventional thinking. Every barrier and obstacle she has had to overcome through graduate school and beyond has equipped her to knock down walls that block people of all kinds from learning and growing. She models how neurodivergent people can go from self-loathing to self-learning to self-loving and thriving. And she wows us average IQ neurotypicals with new ways of seeing life and leadership. When we make space for atypical friends with a little flexibility and support, they bring their super strengths to the table and team!

(I share this message with her permission.)