Ellie Holbert, founder and principal of Empact Advisory Services, is a scientist, researcher and organizational change expert who has mastered unlocking full potential of organizations including transforming some of the largest health systems in the U.S. as well as large enterprises with over 250,000 employees. In this latest episode, she highlights the key factors to her system of discovering the human potential to perform in organizations with KPI structure, culture, and habits that drive results.
0:00 Episode Highlight 1 - Redefining Failure & Circle of Safety
0:42 Episode Highlight 2 - Case: Wrong KPIs harmed Customer Satisfaction in a Large U.S. Healthcare System
03:34 Personal Inspiration: Lessons from Motherhood & Reading
“Redefining strength, resilience, and inspiration.”
04:53 Academic Excellence & Early Career Discipline
“Why structure, early mastery, and emotional intelligence shaped her career.”
07:46 Metrics vs. Culture: Avoiding the Wrong Incentives
“How poorly designed KPIs can backfire—and what to measure instead.” Importance of balancing individual and team metrics. Measuring trust, approachability of leaders and emotional intelligence factors is linked to observable leadership that drives business outcomes.
10:30 Unintended Problems of Procurement KPIs in Largest US Health System. Created Customer Dissatisfaction despite opposite intentions.
11:40 When to Invest in Team Effectiveness Interventions
“Times of change, fear, and stagnation demand cultural investment.”
Employees are operating from self-protection which is slowing innovation, and performance.
16:42 Today's Need to Protect Top Performers & Measure ROI
“Why high performers deliver 8X output and how to retain them.”
19:49 Building Self-Driven Teams That Last Beyond Consulting
Ellie anchors specific techniques to “Psychological safety, retrospectives, and boldness as cultural cornerstones.”
20:30 Leadership Power of Describing Reality Accurately without BlameSelf-regulation is a norm in the most successful teams, centered on creating structure with clarity, safe environment and analysis of emotional intelligence.
24:48 Keys to Thrive in Uncertainty: Mindset, Delegation & Letting Go
27:57 Redefining the Modern Organization
Ellie reacts to Netflix custom to encourage executives to make $1 million dollar mistakes. Failure is a critical part of our success, as well as sharing lessons from failures because of the benefits of learning. “The four pillars: psychological safety, belonging, clarity, and purpose.”
33:03 Case Study: From Chaos to Clarity in 8 Weeks
Ellie tells how she created champions in a financial services organization with 5000 employees handling a major cybersecurity initiative, pressure and uncertainty. “How one healthcare team improved ROI by 45X and revenue by 11X.”
37:35 – Final Words & Team Health Assessment
“Start small: measure and improve team health."
