Highly Adaptive

You've identified the problem. Your departments are fraying. The silos are real. The revenue impact is measurable. Now what?

In Part 2 of The Fabric, Not the Thread, Jeff Pelliccio and Erin MacKenzie continue their conversation with Anna Frazzetto, Founder and CEO of AFM Strategic Partners, and shift from diagnosis to action. Anna walks through a tech rollout that looked great on paper and collapsed within three months — not because the tool was bad, but because nobody inspected whether the team was actually using it. She introduces her "inspect what you expect" framework, explains why she treats every rollout like a rehearsal dinner, and shares the three-touchpoint communication method she developed managing offshore teams. Jeff drops the line that may be the most shareable insight across both episodes: "The responsibility of the message landing properly is on the sender, not the receiver." And the PB&J exercise? It's the simplest proof that what you think you communicated and what your team actually heard are almost never the same thing.

Part 1 found the fray. This is where you build the loom.

Key Takeaways

The responsibility is on the sender, not the receiver: If your rollout failed, don't start by looking at the people who didn't execute. Start by asking whether the message was ever woven into the way they actually work. Ownership of communication sits with the person sending it.

Inspect what you expect: Rolling something out and walking away isn't leadership. Anna's framework: if you set an expectation, follow up on it. Use gaps as learning opportunities, not blame opportunities. The rollouts that unravel are the ones where nobody checked back in.

Over-communication hasn't failed yet: Anna uses three touchpoints for every initiative: a team meeting to discuss, a follow-up email to document, and a check-in the following week to confirm understanding. It sounds like a lot. Until that third touchpoint is when someone finally says, "Oh, now I get it."

The PB&J test reveals everything: Ask your team to write instructions for making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Watch the assumptions surface. Some people skip "open the jar." That's the same gap that kills your rollouts — the assumption that everyone sees the same picture you do.

Treat every rollout like a rehearsal dinner: Before you go live, bring every team member and their managers together for a final check. Make sure Jane knows her role, John knows his, and nobody's carrying a hidden red flag. The tighter the rehearsal, the faster you recover when something breaks.

Build templates that outlast the project: The best organizations don't reinvent the rollout every time. They build a repeatable project plan — who's involved, how communication happens, where the checkpoints are — and use it from project to project. The loom becomes a system, not a one-time effort.

Thinking in fabric is a leadership identity: Cross-functional leadership isn't a trend. It's a philosophy. The leaders who see the full pattern — not just their own thread — are the ones who move entire organizations forward.

Sponsors

🐼 Allied Insight: Building a loom takes intention. Allied Insight helps staffing and consulting businesses design marketing strategies that connect to sales, operations, and growth...not just look good on a slide. The Preferred Marketing Partner of Staffing and Consulting businesses.

🐙 All Things Staffing: The templates, the insights, the community that keeps your threads connected. Expert Resources for the Staffing Community.

You've sat in that meeting. The one where someone says "culture is everything"...right before cutting the program that proved it.

This week, Jeff Pelliccio and Erin MacKenzie sit down with DeLibra Wesley, founder of NRC and Women of Color in Staffing, for a conversation about what happens when leaders stop copying culture playbooks and start building from what they've actually lived through.

DeLibra didn't read about best practices in a book. She built maternity leave because hers didn't exist until her eighth month of pregnancy. She created wellness days because she watched what happened when people were forced to work through their worst moments. She launched a student loan repayment program because her team told her what they needed and she listened. Every policy traces back to something real.

The conversation moves from what breaks inside organizations when culture gets treated as optional, to what DeLibra built at NRC that stopped the bleeding, and then beyond her own walls into the communities she serves. Her nonprofit, Women of Color in Staffing, started because she went looking for a community that didn't exist. So she created one. NRC Cares, the philanthropic arm of her company, puts employees on the board of directors and teaches them how to build something that lasts.

If you've ever wondered why your culture programs look right on paper but don't stick, this is the episode that explains what's missing.

Key Takeaways

Culture isn't discretionary, it's infrastructure. When leaders treat culture programs as perks to cut during downturns, they signal that employee wellbeing was never embedded in the first place.

"We're going to sunset this" means it's already gone. DeLibra calls out the pattern: companies promise to replace what they cut, and the replacement never comes. The message employees hear is louder than anything on the careers page.

Build from what you lived through, not what you benchmarked. Every policy at NRC traces back to a real experience. Maternity leave DeLibra didn't have. Holidays that didn't reflect her team's identities. Fear cultures she watched break people. That's what makes them stick.

You can't be a lazy leader. Culture investment is individual. It means figuring out what each person on your team needs, not applying a one-size-fits-all framework and calling it done.

The Tomorrow File. DeLibra's concept for change-makers who aren't yet in a position to implement: keep a running file of every culture change you want to make, and be ready when the window opens. Even a crack is enough if you're prepared.

Your community doesn't stop at your doors. NRC extended culture investment to contractors through student loan repayment and summer savings plans. Women of Color in Staffing grew from 50 members to nearly 400. NRC Cares puts employees on the board. When the community you need doesn't exist, you build it.

Showing up is the strategy. DeLibra adjusts her own calendar around the team's monthly happy hour, not the other way around. The simplest culture investment costs nothing but your presence.

Sponsors

🐼 Allied Insight: When your culture runs deep, your marketing should reflect it. Allied Insight helps staffing and consulting businesses build brands that match the organizations behind them. The Preferred Marketing Partner of Staffing and Consulting businesses.

🐙 All Things Staffing: The leadership insights don't stop when the episode ends. All Things Staffing delivers expert resources to keep you sharp between conversations. Expert Resources for the Staffing Community.

You've felt the friction before. The meeting where marketing is celebrating lead volume and sales can't convert a single one. The initiative that stalled because three departments had three different scripts. The moment you realize everyone's working hard — just not together.

In this episode, Jeff Pelliccio and Erin MacKenzie sit down with Anna Frazzetto, Founder and CEO of AFM Strategic Partners, for Part 1 of a two-part conversation about what it actually costs when your organization operates as loose threads instead of connected fabric. Anna shares what she's seen firsthand, including a 23% revenue loss at one company where back-office systems weren't aligned with the services being delivered. She walks through the evolution of the C-suite, why specialization created silos nobody intended, and what happened when she started having teams shadow each other across departments. The results were a paradigm shift in how the organization operated and it started with mutual respect, not a reorg.

This is the diagnosis. Part 2 is the fix.

Key Takeaways

• Alignment isn't a buzzword — it's a revenue driver — Only 31% of employees are engaged at work, and 84% of marketers say cross-functional work feels like dragging an anchor. The organizations that figure out how to weave their departments together see compounding returns.
• Most organizations have all the threads — they're missing the loom — The talent, the tools, and the expertise are already there. What's missing is the structure that connects them. Without shared metrics, interlocking goals, and deliberate coordination, departments run parallel instead of together.
• The C-suite evolved for good reason — but lost end-to-end ownership — Specialization addressed complexity. But in creating a CRO, CSO, CMO, CDO, and more, organizations lost anyone responsible for the full journey. The threads got stronger. The fabric disappeared.
• Silos cost real money — Anna observed a 23% revenue impact when back-office systems weren't aligned with service delivery. That number only became visible after an organizational change proved the delta. Most companies don't even measure it.
• Shadow programs break silos faster than reorgs — When Anna had sales sit with recruiters and recruiters sit with IT, mutual respect replaced finger-pointing. Teams started solving problems together because they finally understood what the other side was dealing with.
• Start with baby steps, not big bangs — Fear and tenure are the two biggest barriers to organizational change. Anna's advice: pitch the smallest structural shift that creates alignment. One department realignment. One shared metric. One interlocked goal. Build from there.
• Come with solutions, not just problems — For change-makers who aren't in leadership yet: do the homework, understand the players, and present possible paths forward. Even imperfect solutions show leadership that you're invested in the company's future.

Sponsors

🐼 Allied Insight: When your departments aren't woven together, your marketing feels it first. Allied Insight helps staffing and consulting businesses build strategies that connect — not just campaigns that compete for attention. The Preferred Marketing Partner of Staffing and Consulting businesses.

🐙 All Things Staffing: The threads are already out there, industry insights, case studies, and practical resources that connect the dots. Expert Resources for the Staffing Community.

Summary

What's actually separating the organizations that are thriving right now from the ones that feel stuck? Most leaders point to technology, talent, or timing. Ericka Hyson makes the case that the real variable is courage — and not the inspirational poster version.

In this conversation, Jeff Pelliccio and Erin MacKenzie sit down with growth advisor Ericka Hyson of Hyson Advisory to dig into what courageous culture actually looks like in practice — and how leaders can build it deliberately before the pressure forces their hand.

Ericka brings two decades of experience building Ettain Group from a startup to over $150 million in revenue, and she doesn't work from theory. The conversation covers the paralysis that's keeping leaders frozen in the face of AI and market uncertainty, the real reason most core values don't stick, and why the most important question you can ask your team this week is one most leaders are avoiding entirely.

Three moments stand out. First, Ericka's reframe of vulnerability as a leadership skill — not a weakness, but the muscle that creates psychological safety for everyone around you. Second, her practical breakdown of how to use core values as a daily decision-making lens, not a wall decoration — including what it means when your top producer isn't living them. And third, the zoom in/zoom out framework for knowing which circle to turn to when the weight of leadership gets heavy.

This one doesn't just challenge how you think about culture. It gives you something to do about it this week.

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Key Takeaways

Start by starting — The leaders winning right now aren't the most prepared. They're the most willing to act with clarity before they have all the answers. Waiting for certainty is its own kind of decision.

Redefine courage for your team — Courage isn't about bold speeches or having the answers. It's about being vulnerable enough to admit what you don't know — and creating a space where your team can do the same.

Make your core values a decision-making lens — If your values only live on a wall, they're not working. Define the specific behaviors behind each one, and use them to coach, recognize, promote, and — when necessary — make the hard call.

Stop being the complaint department — When you solve every problem that lands on your desk, you train your team to bring you problems instead of solutions. Ask for two ideas before you offer one of your own.

Share the backpack — Innovation doesn't have to live at the top. Empower people to own ideas from conception to execution, and watch what happens when they come back with the plan themselves.

Know when to zoom in and when to zoom out — Your internal circle helps you execute. Your external circle — peers, coaches, advisors — helps you see the bigger picture. The right conversation in the wrong circle produces the wrong result.

Ask the question your organization is avoiding — This week, find someone you trust and ask: what's one conversation we're not having that we should be? Then actually listen.

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Sponsors

🐼 Allied Insight: Building a courageous culture starts with having the right partners in your corner. Allied Insight helps staffing and consulting firms find their voice, sharpen their positioning, and show up with clarity in the market. The Preferred Marketing Partner of Staffing and Consulting businesses.

🐙 All Things Staffing: Expert resources for the staffing community. Whether you're building culture, navigating change, or growing your firm, All Things Staffing connects you with the tools and insights to move forward. Expert Resources for the Staffing Community.

You've done the RFP. You've narrowed the field. You've sat through the presentations. And somehow, you still aren't sure who to choose.

That's not a process failure. That's a signal that the process stopped too soon.

In Episode 022 of Highly Adaptive, Jeff Pelliccio and Erin MacKenzie reimagine what vendor evaluation looks like when you go beyond capability and price to organizational alignment. The conversation starts with a real experience: Erin flew to Louisville for a final-two vendor evaluation, and after back-to-back presentations, the client sat both vendors at the same dinner table. No decks. No agenda. Just people telling their stories. What got revealed that night is the whole point of this episode.

With conference season here, the timing couldn't be better. You're about to meet more potential partners in a compressed window than at any other point in the year. Jeff and Erin break down how to use that in-person time intentionally with an invisible scorecard that most executives are already running, just not formally. Walk in with it. Use it on purpose.

The RFP gets you to the right finalists. This episode helps you figure out who actually belongs in your organization for the long run.

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Key Takeaways

• Go beyond the RFP — Capability and price get you to the right finalists. Organizational alignment determines who belongs in your organization for the long run.
• Build your invisible scorecard — Trustworthiness, emotional intelligence, conflict style, and cultural alignment are already being evaluated. Make those criteria explicit before your next selection process.
• Use the conference environment actively — Informal settings strip away controlled conditions. Cocktail hours, dinners, and hallway conversations reveal the version of a vendor you'll actually work with.
• Skip the booth demo for serious finalists — Request a side conversation outside the vendor hall. Change the setting, change the dynamic.
• Watch who can get off the product — If a vendor can't hold a conversation that isn't about their solution, that tells you something important about the partnership you'd be entering.
• Bring a buddy — An unbiased second perspective catches what you'll miss and removes bias from your evaluation.
• Use a simple rubric — Three criteria, a one-to-five scale, and a note taken right after the conversation. Drop it into AI when you're home. Let the data do the work your gut can't do alone.

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Sponsors

🐼 Allied Insight: When your vendor evaluation is done, your marketing still needs a partner you can trust. Allied Insight works alongside staffing and consulting firms to build the kind of brand presence that earns long-term relationships. The Preferred Marketing Partner of Staffing and Consulting businesses.

🐙 All Things Staffing: The resources your team needs to navigate vendor decisions, industry trends, and everything in between. Expert Resources for the Staffing Community.