Unlocking High Performance

Many leaders are asking whether AI will replace managers or just make their jobs harder. This episode takes a different angle and looks at how managers can use AI to get better at the work only they can do. Jason Lauritsen walks through three practical opportunities: using AI to sharpen clarity in how you set expectations and give feedback, giving managers a trusted place to get coaching instead o...

Growing a company from twenty people to a few hundred changes almost everything about how you lead. Culture is usually the first thing to feel the strain. In this conversation, Jason Lauritsen talks with Dan Kessler, president of Energage, the research partner behind the Top Workplaces program. He shares what it actually takes to keep a culture healthy while a business grows, makes acquisitions, a...

You wrap up the meeting feeling good about it. Everyone nodded, the decision got made, and then the moment people step out of the room, it starts to come apart. This episode is about why that happens and what to do about it. The core idea is that agreement is not alignment. Agreement is the nod in the room. Alignment is when people leave and independently make the same call, and follow through the...

Most leaders were trained to tell people to leave their personal lives at the door. This conversation makes the case for the opposite. Tim Anderson, president and CEO of the United States Senate Federal Credit Union, explains how his team built a workplace that treats employees as whole people and still runs a strong business. You will hear how flexibility, mental and financial health support, and...

Feeling stuck is one of the most common and most isolating experiences in work and in life. In this solo episode, Jason Lauritsen shares his own year-long effort to move his business forward after realizing he kept landing in the same place, year after year. He walks through what it actually took to break the loop, why reinventing the business meant reinventing himself, and the two lessons that ma...

If you are trying to keep your culture consistent as you grow, this conversation shows you how one people leader is doing it across hundreds of locations and thousands of frontline workers. You will learn why clarity and alignment are two different jobs, how an origin story becomes a tool for shaping culture, how to design the employee experience so people live your values without ever being hande...

In this solo episode, Jason explores with a question that sounds simple until you look at it closely. What does it look like to care for someone as their leader? He talks through why care at work has to look different from the care we show at home because the relationship has specific purpose. And he highlights the moments when the most caring thing a leader can do is to step into a difficult conv...

When a company grows fast, it's easy to see only the good in it. The wins keep coming, so the quieter thing underneath is easy to miss. Some of the core things that fueled the company’s growth start to drift, and it rarely shows up as a culture problem at first. It shows up somewhere else, in a client commenting that things feel different or a long-term employee deciding to leave. In this episode,...

In this episode, Jason does something a little different and talks through his own business, newly relaunched as Connected Performance Group. He shares why he rebuilt the way he works with clients, and lays out the system he developed over two decades for getting at the root of performance problems instead of just the surface. If you've followed his work for years but were never quite sure what he...

Everyone carries a particular way of seeing the world. It's shaped by where we grew up, how we were taught, and the experiences we’ve collected along the way. Most of the time, it goes unnoticed. But that lens shapes how situations get read, how people get judged, and how someone leads. When it goes unexamined, it can become a dangerous blind spot for leaders. In this solo episode, Jason looks at...

In this episode of Unlocking High Performance, Jason is joined by Chris Sund, President and CEO of UnityMed and GQR Healthcare and COO of Nebula. Chris leads a distributed workforce across healthcare staffing, recruiting, and AI-powered talent solutions, and he shares how his teams treat experience design as a deliberate, structured part of the business. At a time when many workplaces are leaning...

In this solo episode of Unlocking High Performance, Jason unpacks one of the most important drivers of team performance: clarity. He describes a pattern he’s seen repeated across organizations of every size. Leaders get frustrated with team members who seem unmotivated or off track, when the real issue is that they have not been clear about what's expected. Jason makes the case that clarity, not m...

Join Jason Lauritsen as he sits down with Lisa Sterling, Chief People Officer at Perceptyx, for a conversation about why the traditional job description has run its course and what becomes possible when leaders stop trying to fit people into predetermined boxes. Lisa argues that job descriptions are a century-old artifact, originally built for factories that needed standardized, repeatable work. W...

In this solo episode, Jason shares the framework he calls the Five Drivers of Performance. It is what he has distilled from years of real-world leadership advising, and it challenges one of the most persistent assumptions leaders make when performance breaks down. Jason unpacks what actually drives employee performance and why most leaders misdiagnose it. He walks through each of the five drivers,...

In this episode, Jason sits down with Melissa Moore, the first People and Culture Executive hired at Ampere Computing before their rapid growth. Together, they unpack how intentional leadership, values operationalization, and a relentless focus on clarity helped build a high-performance culture as the company scaled from 275 employees to over 1,400 across six countries. Key highlights from the con...

In this solo episode, Jason introduces a practical team exercise called the personal user's manual. The concept is simple. It's a way for each person on a team to document how they work best so their teammates don't have to guess. We have instructions for nearly everything we own. But when it comes to the people we work with every day, there's no guide. No clear way to know how someone prefers to...

Jason Lauritsen sits down with Kate Bravery, Senior Partner and Global Leader of Talent Advisory at Mercer, to dig into the findings from Global Talent Trends report. Now in its 11th year, the study draws on more than 12,000 voices across 24 countries and 16 industries, capturing the perspectives of employee experience, leadership, AI adoption, and the growing pressure on organizations to deliver...

In this straight-talking solo episode of Unlocking High Performance, Jason Lauritsen tackles one of the most difficult leadership challenges CEOs, HR leaders, and managers face: what to do about the “brilliant jerk.” These are the high performers who deliver results on paper but create dysfunction, erode trust, and quietly damage the people around them. Jason explains why tolerating toxic high per...

An introduction to Unlocking High Performance and the conversations shaping leadership, growth, and performance.

Jason Lauritsen has spent more than two decades helping leaders build organizations where people and performance both thrive. In this special episode, he introduces the next chapter of his podcast, now called Unlocking High Performance , and shares the thinking behind the change, what listeners can expect going forward, and why this work matters more than ever. The relaunch is more than a name cha...

Join Jason for an insightful, heartfelt conversation with his daughter Bailey, a high school senior and returning guest who brings a fresh, next-generation perspective on work, communication, and the rapidly changing world of careers.   As the year comes to a close, Bailey returns to reflect on her early work experiences, lessons in workplace culture, and what the future holds. As a member of...

Join Jason for a thought-provoking episode as he welcomes Shalynne Jackson, Chief Culture and Engagement Officer and CEO of Sonder Strategies. Shalynne is renowned for her commitment to building workplaces where people feel seen, connected, and valued.   In this episode, Jason and Shalynne dive deep into how organizations can foster meaningful human connection at work, especially in times whe...

"I'm going to enjoy my life now. If there is no golden goose at the end of this, no pot, there's no money at the end of this rainbow, I'm just going to enjoy my life now." - Tess Brigham speaking about the Gen Z perspective on work   ** Join Jason Lauritsen for an insightful episode featuring Tess Brigham, licensed therapist, certified coach, and TEDx speaker. Tess brings over 20 years of exp...

Most people avoid silence, it feels uncomfortable. But what if silence is actually where the most meaningful conversations begin?   In this episode, join Jason as he shares a simple but powerful practice called spacious listening, the art of using silence to build deeper connection, trust, and understanding. You will learn how to: Use silence as a leadership and communication tool Listen in a...

"The essence of what we do is making sure that people all over the country, in all 50 states, when they're in a moment where they need care, medical care, there are the right caregivers in the right place at the right moment." - Shane Jackson ** Join Jason for a compelling conversation with Shane Jackson, President of Jackson Healthcare, a dynamic leader at the helm of one of America’s most recogn...