In today’s episode, I’m unpacking one of the most timeless—and urgent—lessons in business: adapt or become irrelevant.

Guy Kawasaki tells the story of the ice industry, where no company successfully transitioned from lake-harvested ice → ice factories → refrigerators. At each stage, the market transformed, but the leaders of yesterday failed to “jump the curve.”

That same story is unfolding right now—in retail, transportation, media, hospitality, and tech. Disruptors rise, incumbents cling to the old model, and the pace of change keeps accelerating. AI, climate tech, and shifting consumer values are only making the cycles faster.

Join me as I explore:
✅ Why most companies miss disruptive shifts—and how to spot them sooner
✅ The accelerating pace of reinvention across every industry
✅ How values-driven consumers are creating market disruption, too
✅ The questions leaders must ask to avoid becoming obsolete
✅ Practical ways to “jump the curve” before the ground disappears beneath you

🔑 Key Takeaways:
✔ Incremental improvement isn’t enough—bold reinvention is required
✔ Disruption never stops—even disruptors get disrupted
✔ Customers’ values are now as disruptive as technology
✔ Adaptation is a choice; irrelevance is not
✔ Leaders who anticipate shifts shape the future, instead of being shaped by it

🔎 Resources & References:
📖 The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki – Lessons on innovation and curve-jumping
📊 McKinsey & Company report on AI adoption – 20–30% productivity gains
📈 Deloitte research on values-driven consumers – 63% demand brands that align

📩 Subscribe & Share:
If this episode reframes how you think about innovation and disruption, share it with a leader navigating change. And subscribe so you don’t miss future deep dives into the forces reshaping business and culture.

#Innovation #Leadership #BusinessStrategy #Disruption #AdaptOrDie #FutureOfWork

Steven Morris, CEO of Matter Consulting is an ever-curious life-seeker, brand and culture building expert, advisor, author, and speaker.

With over 27 years of entrepreneurial experience, he has served as a trusted advisor to over 3,000 business leaders and evolved more than 250 brands and cultures, including Google, Habitat for Humanity, Samsung, and Disney.

His best-selling book, "The Beautiful Business," and his widely read Insights blog are a testament to his consulting expertise in creating unignorable, magnetic, and sustainable companies.

His diverse interests, including meditation, fine art painting, surfing, and beekeeping, infuse his work with creativity, soul, and a deep understanding of the human experience.

You can find more podcasts and join 30,000+ other brilliant and soulful readers of his weekly INSIGHTS blog at MatterCo.

In today’s episode, I’m unpacking one of the most misunderstood dynamics in leadership and culture: pressure. Most of us are taught to manage it, reduce it, or even escape it. But the world’s best teams—from the New Zealand All Blacks to Pixar’s story rooms—do the opposite: they normalize it, ritualize it, and transform it into purpose.

The All Blacks put it bluntly: “Pressure is an honor.” It’s not a burden, it’s evidence that the moment matters. And they back this ethos with cultural anchors like “Sweep the sheds” and “Leave the jersey in a better place.” In Danny Meyer’s restaurants, pressure fuels hospitality. At Pixar, it fuels creativity. Across wildly different arenas, pressure becomes a marker of significance—not something to avoid, but something to lean into.

Join me as I explore:
✅ Why most leaders treat pressure as a threat—and why it backfires
✅ How elite teams reframe pressure as proof of significance
✅ The role of mantras, rituals, and shared language in metabolizing stress
✅ How trust transforms pressure from fear into fuel
✅ Practical ways to shift your own relationship to high-stakes moments

🔑 Key Takeaways:
✔ Pressure isn’t the problem—our framing is
✔ Great cultures name, normalize, and ritualize stress
✔ Shared language turns pressure into purpose
✔ Humility and stewardship ground performance under pressure
✔ The highest-performing teams lean into pressure as proof of meaning

🔎 Resources & References:
📖 The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle – Lessons from the All Blacks and beyond
📚 Setting the Table by Danny Meyer – Insights into hospitality under pressure
🎥 Pixar’s Braintrust process – Building safety for creativity under stakes
📌 Research on performance under pressure – Harvard Business Review

📩 Subscribe & Share:
If this episode reframes how you think about pressure in leadership and culture, share it with someone navigating their own high-stakes arena. And subscribe so you don’t miss future deep dives into the mindsets that separate good teams from great ones.

#LeadershipCulture #HighPerformanceTeams #PressureIsAPrivilege #OrganizationalCulture #FutureOfWork #ResilientLeadership

Steven Morris, CEO of Matter Consulting is an ever-curious life-seeker, brand and culture building expert, advisor, author, and speaker.

With over 27 years of entrepreneurial experience, he has served as a trusted advisor to over 3,000 business leaders and evolved more than 250 brands and cultures, including Google, Habitat for Humanity, Samsung, and Disney.

His best-selling book, "The Beautiful Business," and his widely read Insights blog are a testament to his consulting expertise in creating unignorable, magnetic, and sustainable companies.

His diverse interests, including meditation, fine art painting, surfing, and beekeeping, infuse his work with creativity, soul, and a deep understanding of the human experience.

You can find more podcasts and join 30,000+ other brilliant and soulful readers of his weekly INSIGHTS blog at MatterCo.

In today’s episode, I’m unpacking one of the most overlooked dynamics in leadership: how trust erodes. It rarely collapses in one dramatic scandal. More often, it fades through small cracks—a shift in direction left unexplained, a promise quietly broken, or a rumor left unaddressed.

In Buddhist ethics, these subtle forces are called “near enemies”—things that look like virtues but hollow them out from within. In leadership, one of the most dangerous near enemies of trust is inconsistency. It’s often disguised as flexibility, agility, or boldness, but behind the scenes it creates confusion, doubt, and disconnection.

So how do leaders build trust that lasts? Not through charisma, but through clarity, alignment, and consistency.

Join me as I explore:
✅ Why inconsistency is the silent killer of trust
✅ The three ways credibility quietly erodes inside organizations
✅ How leaders mistake ambiguity for adaptability—and why it backfires
✅ Why clarity creates more freedom, not less
✅ Four trust-building practices you can put into action today

🔑 Key Takeaways:
✔ Trust erodes quietly through near enemies, not obvious failures
✔ What leaders don’t say can matter as much as what they do
✔ Inconsistency feels nimble at the top but chaotic to the team
✔ Consistency builds credibility, alignment, and resilience
✔ Charisma can spark attention, but only consistency sustains belief

🔎 Resources & References:
📊 Enemies of Trust – Harvard Business Review
📖 The Book of Joy by the Dalai Lama & Desmond Tutu – Insights on near enemies and virtues
📚 Amy Edmondson – Research on psychological safety as a foundation for trust
📌 Harvard Business Review – Studies on leadership credibility and alignment

📩 Subscribe & Share:
If this episode reshapes how you think about trust in leadership, share it with a colleague or mentor. And don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss another deep dive into the future of leadership and organizational culture.

#TrustInLeadership #ConsistentLeadership #OrganizationalCulture #LeadershipDevelopment #FutureOfWork #LeadWithIntegrity #ResilientLeadership

Steven Morris, CEO of Matter Consulting is an ever-curious life-seeker, brand and culture building expert, advisor, author, and speaker.

With over 27 years of entrepreneurial experience, he has served as a trusted advisor to over 3,000 business leaders and evolved more than 250 brands and cultures, including Google, Habitat for Humanity, Samsung, and Disney.

His best-selling book, "The Beautiful Business," and his widely read Insights blog are a testament to his consulting expertise in creating unignorable, magnetic, and sustainable companies.

His diverse interests, including meditation, fine art painting, surfing, and beekeeping, infuse his work with creativity, soul, and a deep understanding of the human experience.

You can find more podcasts and join 30,000+ other brilliant and soulful readers of his weekly INSIGHTS blog at MatterCo.