Join Jason Lauritsen as he sits down with Lisa Sterling, Chief People Officer at Perceptyx, for a conversation about why the traditional job description has run its course and what becomes possible when leaders stop trying to fit people into predetermined boxes.

Lisa argues that job descriptions are a century-old artifact, originally built for factories that needed standardized, repeatable work. We are still using that same container to hold modern jobs, and it no longer fits. When we start deconstructing our jobs, we make room for people to do the work they are actually great at, and that is where real performance starts.

Key highlights from the conversation include:

👉 Why the job description is an industrial era container that no longer holds modern work, and what it takes to start rebuilding roles around tasks instead

👉 A behind-the-scenes look at the hackathon Lisa ran with her people team to break work into tasks, surface hidden strengths, and decide what AI could automate or augment

👉 How matching work to people's genius zones surfaces hidden strengths, improves retention, and gets more out of the team without adding headcount

👉 How Lisa is rethinking compensation, career ladders, and job architecture when titles and levels stop driving the work

👉 A more honest way to frame the AI conversation by focusing on tasks rather than jobs, which makes the question less scary and far more useful

Connect with Lisa:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisamsterling/

---

JOIN THOUSANDS OF LEADERS WHO ARE HARNESSING THE POWER OF RELATIONSHIPS AT WORK.

Subscribe to our newsletter: https://tinyurl.com/59nrvxnj

--

Connect with Jason Lauritsen:

Website: https://jasonlauritsen.com/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@JasonLauritsenVideo

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonlauritsen/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jasonlauritsen/

In this solo episode, Jason shares the framework he calls the Five Drivers of Performance. It is what he has distilled from years of real-world leadership advising, and it challenges one of the most persistent assumptions leaders make when performance breaks down.

Jason unpacks what actually drives employee performance and why most leaders misdiagnose it. He walks through each of the five drivers, from the most common to the least, and explains how to tell which one you are dealing with.

Key highlights from the conversation include:

👉 Clarity is the most common cause of underperformance, and most leaders are far less clear with their people than they think they are.

👉 Feedback failures are the second most frequent driver, often invisible to the leader until the damage is already done.

👉 Know-how gaps appear when someone understands what is expected but genuinely lacks the skills to deliver it.

👉 Capability issues arise when someone is in the wrong role for who they are, regardless of how much support they receive.

👉 Desire and motivation are rarely the real problem, and when the other four drivers are addressed, they tend to take care of themselves.

Download the Clarity Check-In Process here:

📝 https://schedule.jasonlauritsen.com/widget/form/wtzmGOMCMigAyG3OFAz0

JOIN THOUSANDS OF LEADERS WHO ARE HARNESSING THE POWER OF RELATIONSHIPS AT WORK.

Subscribe to our newsletter: https://schedule.jasonlauritsen.com/widget/form/X0TvQvV1hu3kDlyy6fRe

--

Connect with Jason Lauritsen:

Website: https://jasonlauritsen.com/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@JasonLauritsenVideo

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonlauritsen/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jasonlauritsen/

In this episode, Jason sits down with Melissa Moore, the first People and Culture Executive hired at Ampere Computing before their rapid growth.

Together, they unpack how intentional leadership, values operationalization, and a relentless focus on clarity helped build a high-performance culture as the company scaled from 275 employees to over 1,400 across six countries.

Key highlights from the conversation include:

👉 Clarity at the top is non-negotiable: How CEO Renee James established a clear vision and values before the people function even existed, and why that foundation made everything else possible.

👉 Values without behavior are just words: The process Ampere used to translate values into specific, agreed-upon behaviors, then embed them into hiring, performance, and recognition from day one.

👉 Leaders have to live it too: How Ampere kept its leadership team accountable to the same values they expected from everyone else, including tying culture fit to promotion and progression decisions.

👉 Culture belongs in the operating model, not just HR: How Ampere wired its values into the R&D methodology, engineering cadence, and annual roadmap, not just people programs.

👉 Belonging isn't enough, people need to matter: Why feeling included falls short, and what it actually takes for employees to feel valued, see their impact, and stay connected to the work.

***

Connect with Melissa

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissammoore1/

***

JOIN THOUSANDS OF LEADERS WHO ARE HARNESSING THE POWER OF RELATIONSHIPS AT WORK.

📌 Subscribe to our newsletter: https://schedule.jasonlauritsen.com/widget/form/X0TvQvV1hu3kDlyy6fRe

Connect with Jason:

Website: https://jasonlauritsen.com/

YouTube: youtube.com/@jasonlauritsenvideo

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/jasonlauritsen

Instagram: instagram.com/jasonlauritsen

In this solo episode, Jason introduces a practical team exercise called the personal user's manual. The concept is simple. It's a way for each person on a team to document how they work best so their teammates don't have to guess.

We have instructions for nearly everything we own. But when it comes to the people we work with every day, there's no guide. No clear way to know how someone prefers to communicate, when they're focused and offline, what kind of feedback lands well for them, or what quietly drives them up the wall. That gap creates unnecessary friction. The personal user's manual is a low-effort, high-value practice that closes it.

Key highlights from the conversation include

👉 What a personal user's manual is and how Jason first came across the practice more than 15 years ago

👉 The core categories worth including in a team template: work schedule and style, communication preferences, feedback and recognition, strengths, and personal pet peeves

👉 Why recognition preferences are more personal than most leaders assume and how asking the right question upfront saves a lot of awkwardness late

👉 A clear walkthrough of how to run the practice, from building a template to hosting a team conversation where people can ask questions and get curious about each other

👉 The specific team situations where this tends to have the biggest payoff, including newer teams, teams navigating change, and managers stepping into a role for the first time.

Additional resources for Personal Users Manuals:

https://slack.com/blog/collaboration/how-personal-operating-manuals-can-help-you-build-a-stronger-team-at-work

https://www.atlassian.com/team-playbook/plays/my-user-manual?tab=instructions

JOIN THOUSANDS OF LEADERS WHO ARE HARNESSING THE POWER OF RELATIONSHIPS AT WORK.

Subscribe to our newsletter: https://schedule.jasonlauritsen.com/widget/form/7l0SZfguXO4LGn1rtmHd

Connect with Jason Lauritsen:

Website: https://jasonlauritsen.com/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@JasonLauritsenVideo

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonlauritsen/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jasonlauritsen/

Jason Lauritsen sits down with Kate Bravery, Senior Partner and Global Leader of Talent Advisory at Mercer, to dig into the findings from Global Talent Trends report. Now in its 11th year, the study draws on more than 12,000 voices across 24 countries and 16 industries, capturing the perspectives of employee experience, leadership, AI adoption, and the growing pressure on organizations to deliver stronger performance in a workforce that is increasingly depleted and disengaged.

At the center of this episode is a hard truth: work is no longer working for a lot of people. Kate shares that only 44% of employees in this year’s study say they are thriving, the lowest level Mercer has seen in more than a decade. At the same time, executives are pushing for faster productivity gains, more aggressive transformation, and deeper AI integration. The tension between those two realities is where this conversation lives, and Kate helps us see it clearly.

Key highlights from the conversation include:

👉 Mercer's latest data shows employee thriving has fallen to 44%, the lowest level they’ve seen in more than a decade.

👉 Employees are feeling the strain of pay pressure, slower career growth, and people systems that no longer match how fast work is changing.

👉 Kate explains the “proximity paradox,” where access to AI tools can actually raise anxiety when leaders aren’t helping people understand what changes.

👉 The gap between executive priorities and HR priorities is still there, with leaders pushing for AI-driven performance while HR is still trying to modernize the basics.

👉 Jason and Kate explore how AI could help HR move from slow, backward-looking processes to faster, more responsive support for employees and managers.

***

Connect with Kate:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kate-bravery/

Global Talent Trends 2025 Report: https://www.mercer.com/insights/people-strategy/future-of-work/global-talent-trends/

***

JOIN THOUSANDS OF LEADERS WHO ARE HARNESSING THE POWER OF RELATIONSHIPS AT WORK.

📌 Subscribe to our newsletter: https://jasonlauritsen.ck.page/950d3c...

Connect with Jason:

Website: https://jasonlauritsen.com/

YouTube: youtube.com/@jasonlauritsenvideo

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/jasonlauritsen

Instagram: instagram.com/jasonlauritsen

In this straight-talking solo episode of Unlocking High Performance, Jason Lauritsen tackles one of the most difficult leadership challenges CEOs, HR leaders, and managers face: what to do about the “brilliant jerk.” These are the high performers who deliver results on paper but create dysfunction, erode trust, and quietly damage the people around them.

Jason explains why tolerating toxic high performers can slow decisions, weaken team dynamics, drive disengagement, and hold entire organizations below their true potential. If you’ve ever felt trapped by someone you think you “can’t afford to lose,” this conversation offers a clearer way forward.

Key highlights from the conversation include:

👉 Why “brilliant jerks” are so hard to address, especially when they’re top performers or senior leaders whose results make leaders feel dependent on them

👉 The hidden organizational costs leaders often miss, including executive team dysfunction, slower decision-making, morale damage, disengagement, and the loss of strong people who quietly opt out or leave

👉 Why leaders almost always wait too long to act, and why the most common response after finally making the call is: I wish I hadn’t waited so long

👉 Jason’s practical framework for handling the situation: get specific about the problematic behavior, confront it directly, set clear expectations in writing, define a timeline for change, and make consequences unmistakably clear

If you’re leading a team, supporting leaders in HR, or trying to build a healthier performance culture, this episode is a timely reminder that high performance should never come at the expense of your people.

JOIN THOUSANDS OF LEADERS WHO ARE HARNESSING THE POWER OF RELATIONSHIPS AT WORK.

Subscribe to our newsletter: https://schedule.jasonlauritsen.com/w...

--

Connect with Jason Lauritsen:

Website: https://jasonlauritsen.com/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@JasonLauritsenVideo

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonlauritsen/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jasonlauritsen/

#UnlockingHighPerformance #JasonLauritsen #Leadership #PeopleLeadership #HRLeadership #WorkplaceCulture #EmployeeExperience #ManagerEffectiveness #OrganizationalHealth

An introduction to Unlocking High Performance and the conversations shaping leadership, growth, and performance.

Jason Lauritsen has spent more than two decades helping leaders build organizations where people and performance both thrive. In this special episode, he introduces the next chapter of his podcast, now called Unlocking High Performance, and shares the thinking behind the change, what listeners can expect going forward, and why this work matters more than ever.

The relaunch is more than a name change. It is a recommitment to a central idea that Jason has been building toward for his entire career: you do not have to choose between taking care of your people and driving strong results. This episode sets the foundation for everything that follows, and it is worth a listen whether you are new to the show or have been along for the ride from the beginning.

Key highlights from the conversation include:

👉Why Jason renamed the show from Check-In with Jason Lauritsen to Unlocking High Performance and what that shift says about the podcast’s sharper mission moving forward

👉 The leadership myth that organizations must choose between high performance and caring for people, and why Jason argues that belief is at the root of burnout culture

👉 A real-world example from Jason’s management experience where doubling down on people led to doubled revenue per employee and lower turnover at the same time

👉 Jason’s core philosophy that performance doesn’t come from pushing people harder, it emerges when leaders create the right conditions for people to thrive

If you lead people or support those who do, this episode is a strong starting point. Jason lays out the premise, the promise, and the practical focus of the show in a way that is grounded, honest, and worth your time. This is a podcast built for leaders who are ready to stop choosing between results and people and start building something better.

JOIN THOUSANDS OF LEADERS WHO ARE HARNESSING THE POWER OF RELATIONSHIPS AT WORK.

Subscribe to our newsletter: https://schedule.jasonlauritsen.com/widget/form/X0TvQvV1hu3kDlyy6fRe

--

Connect with Jason Lauritsen:

Website: https://jasonlauritsen.com/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@JasonLauritsenVideo

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonlauritsen/

Instagram: https://instagram.com/jasonlauritsen/

--

#UnlockingHighPerformance #Leadership #HRLeaders #EmployeeExperience #WorkplaceCulture #ManagerEffectiveness #PeopleAndPerformance #FutureOfWork #BurnoutPrevention