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Decisions at the Fulcrum

Decisions at the Fulcrum

Written by: William Hoffman Ph.D.
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Decisions at the Fulcrum is a show where pivotal moments of crisis are covered with depth and breadth, to explain why the communication that transpires within organizations and groups is central to the process and outcomes of organizational change and tenacity. Each episode unpacks a turning point—a brand pivot, a bold leadership move, a course correction. The show explores pivotal decision moments. Through layered storytelling and applied research moments, Dr. William Hoffman navigates through coy tensions and catalytic decisions that reshape brands, industries, institutions, and the persons involved. This podcast is made for the entrepreneurial mind, the reflective leader, the culturally competent executive, the start up scholar, and anyone who knows that the fulcrum is where it all turns. Come for insight, come for stories, come for forays into the academic forests, where meaning rustles just past the clearing!

URL: https://DATfulcrum.podbean.com

Copyright 2025 All rights reserved.
Economics Science Social Sciences
Episodes
  • Shelf Stable Competence: Vega's perseverance in a category that keeps overpromising
    Jan 23 2026

    There was a time when a protein powder didn't pretend to be a personality type, thanks to history doing its irritating job. Inside a compostable wrapping, it offered no intensity, calmness, or equitable harmony. It was only a coarse, chalk-like implement for those who viewed eating as an administrative task.

    So how did we get from a few bars in the latter part of the 1980s and early 1990s to today's chaotic, unending protein aisle?

    We follow the sector's development via geography in this episode of Decisions at the Fulcrum, concentrating on the manufacturers, ideas, and commercial activities that made protein an adaptable point of view. Vega, our mentor guide today, started out in 2001 in Vancouver, British Columbia, where protein was presented as reliability, credibility, and responsibilities without the shouting.

    In an industry that is prone on spurious approaches, I trace Vega's exceptionally patient rise (independent for over a decade), WhiteWave's 2015 acquisition of the company, and WhiteWave's 2017 acquisition by Danone, in an exceptionally "responsive" sequence. Along the way, I consider what it really means when eating becomes designation rather than sustenance and why, frequently, competency seems to transcend all of the hype. Although these protein bars are no longer available, they certainly created space for the plethora of plant based varieties in the protein bar aisle today and they continue to offer several protein powders, often with additional nutritional claims attached to them.

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    21 mins
  • Deliberately Quartered: How Maryland Learns to Live with Its History
    Jan 22 2026

    There are state flags everywhere, but they are seldom investigated. In this episode of Decisions at the Fulcrum, I focus on Maryland's state flag, a quartered design that seems to be contrasting a lot with itself. The tension was a decision though about a state sense of place and identity.

    Let's be clear: The Civil War was not a conflict of equal moral standing, and acknowledging division or later reconciliation amongst divided parties is not the same as legitimizing both positions during the conflict. The question today is how a state constructs a shared civic future without pretending the past never happened.

    Using Communication Theory of Identity (Hecht et al.), I explore how Maryland’s Calvert and Crossland imagery shifted from civic war symbolism to an official state flag in 1904 all the way to today.

    I examine Maryland's evolution from the diffused early symbols from the 17th and 18th centuries to a flag the retains the original houses in Maryland before independence. Maryland has managed to hold an identity infrastructure that moved history ahead and allowed for a civic future. That's what I'm getting into today on decisions at the fulcrum.

    Maryland.gov source:

    https://sos.maryland.gov/Pages/Services/Flag-History.aspx

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    19 mins
  • The Rise of Invisible Risk: From Nylon to Supply Chain Materials (Part 2 1918-2020s)
    Jan 11 2026

    Part II of the DuPont episodes begins after the armistice following World War I. The episode begins in November 1918, when the explosions cease, contracts disappear, and a munitions-based firm determines what to become afterwards.

    This episode follows DuPont's postwar shift from an explosives firm to a materials empire, beginning with nylon. Nylon was that material in American department shops. We start there, but the episode concludes with the lengthy and unresolved narrative of PFAS. Along the way, we look at how industrial risk shifted from a loud, visible threat to something far more difficult to perceive, assess, and regulate.

    Rather than portraying DuPont as an antagonist or an unlikely hero, the current episode investigates how companies react to uncertainty, how innovation becomes framework, and the ways that harm might come from duration, magnitude, and latency.

    Drawing on organizational sensemaking, regulatory precedent, and social context, this tells a story about what happens when materials perform thoroughly enough — and remain effective long enough — that their consequences exceed the decisions that formed them.

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    25 mins
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