by Annette Franz | Mar 11, 2026 | culture, golden thread, leadership, middle management, Uncategorized
As I mentioned in my previous articles about middle managers, business folks talk endlessly about how leaders set the tone and frontline employees drive the experience. But the truth is simpler and far more uncomfortable: culture succeeds or fails in the middle....
by Annette Franz | Mar 4, 2026 | culture, golden thread, leadership, middle management, Uncategorized
Leaders love to talk about culture at the top and experience at the frontline, but they routinely skip the one group that determines whether either will work: middle managers. Middle managers sit in the most misunderstood, overloaded, and under-supported layer of the...
by Annette Franz | Feb 25, 2026 | culture, culture change, golden thread, leadership, middle management, Uncategorized
If you want to know whether your culture will thrive or die, look at your middle managers. They’re either the greatest accelerators of change or the reason nothing ever sticks. Most organizations over-invest in executive alignment and employee engagement and quietly...
by Annette Franz | Sep 2, 2026 | core values, culture, employee experience, leadership, teamwork, Uncategorized
I originally wrote this post for Contact Center Pipeline. It appeared on their site in September 2025. Every company has a culture, whether it’s the one you design or the one you allow. But in many organizations, there are actually two: the mission culture, i.e., what...
by Annette Franz | May 6, 2026 | business outcomes, core values, culture, employee experience, golden thread, leadership, outcome tracing, outcomes, Uncategorized, workplace
“Fix the culture, fix the outcomes.” I say this often (and I’ve written about it before). It’s even my signature line when I do Built to Win: Designing a Customer-Centric Culture That Drives Value for Your Business book signings. Occasionally someone...
