Culture Rules Without Rules.,Perks.,Control.,Consequences.,Authority.,Bribes.,Threats.,Punishment.

Changes in demographics and technology have turned the rules that once guided high-growth organizations' success into their primary chokepoint. Our practical take on emotional intelligence reshapes your culture and optimizes your hiring, replacing rules-based approaches with the more powerful choice-based model embraced by market leaders.

Welcome To The Choice Economy

Autonomy is a fundamental psychological need, driving choice in every facet of the modern economy, from customizing sneakers to selecting dinner. To win marketshare you must offer more choice, faster, and with less friction than anyone else.

 

Choice powers customer engagement. We’ve entered the era where it drives employee engagement as well.

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Rules never really ruled.

 

Changing jobs was once labor-intensive and risky. People stayed, obeying often punitive rules, because they had no choice. Rules didn’t ensure compliance. A lack of options did.

 

Now, technology empowers individuals to choose a new job with a simple click, turning their current employer’s rigid rules into a choice to seek opportunity elsewhere.

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The Perfect Storm

 

Until 2029, 10,000 baby boomers retire daily, creating skilled expertise gaps. In response, remote technology allows access to seasoned talent globally, while local jobs are filled by younger, tech-savvy workers. Technology has also cut routine tasks, making innovation a competitive necessity. Creativity now defines success or failure.

 

Each shift fuels the next, driving exponential change. The void left by mass retirements reset expectations. People want a say in when, where and how they work. Rules stifle creativity. In an economy where workers expect choice and ingenuity is non-negotiable, rules are not simply inefficient—they can be disastrous.

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“MORE ORGANIZATIONS DIE OF INDIGESTION THAN STARVATION.”

- DAVE PACKARD, CO-FOUNDER HEWLETT PACKARD.

 

The lifespan of a S&P 500 firm in 1958 was 61 years. Now it's less than 18. Three quarters of today's S&P 500 areprojected to vanish by 2027. These are successful firms benefiting from access to capital. Easy capital may solve hunger, but rules cause harmful indigestion. Choice let's you:

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Increase Performance

People can ‘hit their numbers’ without being made to feel like one.

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Lose The Carrots & Sticks

Effort & performance shouldn’t require bribes or threats.

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Forge Authentic Engagement

Accountability doesn’t need to be synonymous with blame.

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Turn Feedback Into A Gift

Discussing performance gaps should’t be an ‘awkward’ conversation.

We Create Cultures That Create Choice. (Which Creates Some FAQs):

Be among the market leaders who have revolutionized their teams through the science of choice. Achieve consistent, repeatable results previously deemed unimaginable. Book an exploration call with one of our experts today.

THE PROBLEM WE SOLVE:

 

As you grow, initially helpful rules become both barriers and burdens, causing conflict and tension as employees face increasingly complex standards to perform simple tasks. Keeping policies that are no longer relevant only increases friction. Yet, many leaders still ‘rule by rules’.

Control Now Means Letting Go.

 

Growth demands heightened standards, emphasizing speed and accountability. This leads many to tighten control over their teams, encouraging short-term results, penalizing mistakes and adding oversight.

 

But the data shows that sustainable leadership relies on autonomy and vulnerability. Employee wellness and mental health are now core priorities. Choice-based leaders are steadily displacing their rule-bound predecessors as a result.

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The Past: Rules-Based Cultures:

The Future: Choice-Based Cultures:

The Real Villain.

 

Low-EQ is the real enemy. Organizations experiencing rapid growth or leadership change need help moving beyond antiquated rules-based ways of working. Reshaping culture and optimizing hiring for today's workplace requires a no-nonsense approach to emotional intelligence.

 

Our proprietary tools, thoughtfully designed and field-tested in high-performance teams for over a decade, are the answer. They're proven to develop Self-Awareness, boost Self-Regulation, increase Empathy, and cultivate true Accountability.

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Cognitive Colours

Capacity Unlocked: Know the enduring traits of everyone on your team and how they influence thoughts & actions.

How It’s Unlocked: By going beyond ‘personality tests’ to reveal unconscious drivers of actions including Biases, Motives & Conflict Responses.

What This Gives You: Increased understanding makes you a better leader. Know what to say and how & when to say it to get the most out of yourself and everyone around you.

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MoodSwing

Capacity Unlocked: Extreme self-awareness, allowing control over your emotions and their influence on behaviour.

How It’s Unlocked: By translating over two dozen common emotions into their base 'code' increasing your emotional literacy with each use.

What This Gives You: When emotion ceases to control your behaviour, you take more risks, leading to growth you could not achieve otherwise.

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Uncommon Norms

Capacity Unlocked: Fully-aligned group behaviours that place the team's interests at the forefront of everyone’s thoughts & actions.

How It’s Unlocked: Using the science of peer influence and distinguishing between positive behaviours and 'ok' behaviours that lead to poor outcomes.

What This Gives You: Feedback increases, healthy conflicts become normal, and your hiring accuracy dramatically improves once these norms are integrated into your process.

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Each of these tools is powerful alone. Book an exploration call to learn how we integrate them to revolutionize how leaders build cultures and add talent to their teams.

The Solutions We Offer:

 

It's easy to adopt rules assuming they bring order. But as you grow they become the biggest constraint holding you back. The only scalable solution is a culture of trust and understanding. One where people are free to choose and feel safe to be corrected when those choices create issues. We help you build this culture and improve your hiring by forging emotional intelligence into both.

How We ‘Smith’ Cultures.

 

The impact of recent economic, demographic, and technological shifts demands strong, innovative workplace cultures promoting creativity and innovation. Success in the evolving world of work belongs to those who embrace trust, reject outdated rules, and foster choice-centric cultures.

 

Our strategic 3-level approach to shaping culture will allow you to build a unified team, eliminate obstacles, and develop yourself into the leader you want to be.

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Lead a team where everyone collaborates seamlessly, focused on excellent results, guided by the best possible version of yourself. That's CultureSmithing.

 

What You Get:

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Expert Facilitation

Struggles with communication, trust, and conflict resolution are often rooted in underlying issues. Our facilitators pinpoint and reveal these hidden obstacles. Using their expertise in emotional intelligence, organizational psychology, and psychological safety, they facilitate learning that identifies and resolves causes over symptoms.

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Mass Customization

Generic training ignores your unique workplace culture. Learner engagement and training ROI both suffer. We customize learning to meet individual needs. The 3 hour expert facilitation is followed by 30 days of individual training tailored to each person's Cognitive Colour. Group sessions ensure alignment, while individual learning meets everyone's needs.

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Enduring Benchmarks

An organization cannot accurately identify areas of improvement or success without benchmarking tailored to their unique needs and goals. Our training process naturally identifies and benchmarks specific areas for improvement. The resulting tools remain, and can be used to improve hiring and performance management long after we leave.

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Earn Verified PD Hours

Maintaining PD requirements can be time-consuming with content that’s often tedious or repetitive. We’re recognized by most major professional designations as verifiable professional development. We issue certificates for each hour completed. Learn soft skills essential to all aspects of your leadership while easing the burden of maintaining your designation.

Sure, you've got skilled talent. But do they use those skills in ways that reflect your culture? Are they elevating the skills of others? Can you accurately predict if your most skilled people will become invaluable A Players or costly C Players when times get tough? The only way to be sure is to clarify and tangibly benchmark your culture. We pioneered this, which makes us unique.

 

Not only does this approach enable us to help transform your current team into an army of A Players, it allows us to ensure every person you hire is top-tier, safeguarding your existing team's engagement as you grow.

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How we fixed hiring with Hire-EQ.

 

Conventional hiring is plagued by two main problems: bias and noise. Bias, the result of unconscious patterns, distorts the perception of a candidate's fit, leading to flawed hiring choices. In contrast, noise emerges from inconsistent interview processes. Not only does this fail to counteract the influence of bias, but it also poses its own set of reliability concerns.

 

HireEQTM eliminates these problems by providing a transparent and consistent hiring process. We minimize bias and eliminate noise so you can make informed hiring choices.

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Our 3-phase process pairs established, evidence-based principles of emotional intelligence with over 50 years of collective recruitment expertise.

 

Whether you bring us talent to screen, or outsource the entire hiring process to our team, you'll have the evidence you need to make confident hiring decisions.

What You Get:

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Tailored Benchmarks

Match candidates to your organizational culture, role requirements and even your own leadership style using our Custom Benchmarking tool. We tailor every role - every time, resulting in a hiring process that reduces turnover by identifying individuals aligned with what matters.

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Detailed Reporting

Our Detailed Reporting provides insights on behaviour patterns, emotional intelligence, culture fit, communication skills and more. Why hire based on how many words on the resume match your job description when we offer real insights just as easily?

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Interview Questions

Fully explore a candidate's fit using our Custom Interview Questions tailored to the role, your culture, the applicant’s behavioural profile, as well as your own. This approach offers clarity about potential hires and reduces interview anxiety for all involved, improving the entire hiring process.

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Your Bias Neutralized

Hiring is a key decision routinely made under pressure. Which is why you’ll not only receiving data on all applicants, but on the unconscious tendencies and emotional triggers in your own decision-making profile. No more red flags ignored or diamonds in the rough dismissed.

Discover Your Options.

 

From screening to selection to onboarding, get detailed information on products, pricing, process and our unbeatable guarantee. Explore hiring as it's meant to be by clicking here.

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How To Get Started:

 

We offer as much support to help you decide if we’re a fit for you as we would any decision we may coach you through as an active client. We create choices, we don’t impose them.

 

Think you might be ready to team up? Here's what to expect:

Book Your Exploration Call:

  • Book a call below.

  • We'll talk about your issues; you'll get your Cognitive Colour, and it may reveal obstacles you're unaware of.

  • Get actionable plans, with guaranteed value, regardless of whether we work together.

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Discover ‘The Working Pitch’:

  • Get a free 'working pitch'. We join your team to solve a real problem in 60 minutes or less.

  • Witness the effectiveness of our tools as we address an actual issue.

  • Facilitates team buy-in. Available online or in person.

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Decide on Your Price:

  • Receive quotes for issues revealed during initial call and working pitch.

  • Enjoy reduced rates with bundled or pre-paid services.

  • Secure your team's emotional well-being within your budget.

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Engage With Our Expertise:

  • Quickly & effectively solve issues from shaping culture, to hiring, to growing EQ.

  • We leave behind tools to promote self-reliance, saving time and money.

  • Benefit from high-intensity, short-duration 'sprints' or ongoing on-demand support.

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Continue to level-up:

  • Assess delivered outcomes and identify future needs.

  • Initial engagements last 3-12 months, with multi-year partnerships common beyond this.

  • Trust in sustained support and proven results.

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Our Guarantee.

 

We know entrusting us with your people is no small thing. We take it seriously, and back it up a guarantee uncommon in our industry.

 

Let us help you shape your culture or optimize your hiring and we'll identify the essential behaviors you need to succeed. With our deep expertise, we'll tailor our approach to draw those behaviors from you and your team. Embrace these habits, and if the goals we agree upon aren't met, you get a full refund and free support until they are.

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Our Promise.

 

Our guarantee means more to us than a simple refund. It's rooted in our core promise to send better versions of the people we work with home to their families each and every day.

 

A promise our founder first made to his family when he realized how poorly he was showing up at home.

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Book a call with an experts. Get a plan to boost your team's emotional stability, regardless of whether we work together. It's a choice you won't regret.

Still not sure? Join our newsletter. Get tips on leadership, culture, and emotional intelligence delivered weekly.

Perhaps You Prefer To Listen?

 

Check out Leaderhood & Parentship- the CultureSmith Inc. podcast, available on all your favorite platforms.

 

New Episodes Drop Each Tuesday.

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