This highlight video is from the  May 15th Milwaukee Talent Development Conference 2025, session Culture Shift - Navigating Constant Change Management Using Better Assessments.

Culture isn’t a poster on the wall—it’s the unwritten rules shaping every decision, every hire, and every exit. In her keynote at the Milwaukee Talent Development Conference 2025, “Culture Shift: Navigating Constant Change Management Using Better Assessments,” Shelley Smith (Managing Director, LAK Group) challenged us to confront an uncomfortable truth: most culture efforts fail not from lack of effort—but from fuzzy alignment and wishful thinking.

This interactive session explores how advanced, science-based assessments can provide clear insights into leadership agility, team dynamics, cultural alignment, and individual readiness, enabling leaders to proactively manage a dynamic workplace and workforce.

If your culture work feels performative, here’s what Shelley says you’re missing:

🔥 5 High-Impact Moves from Shelley Smith:

• 📊 Get brutally honest with assessments: Skip the assumptions. Let the data surface the gap between leadership narratives and employee reality.

• 🚀 Train leaders to see their blind spots: Culture shifts when leaders model the future—starting with their own micro-behaviors.

• 🔄 Redefine ‘change’ as human transition: Change is logistics. Transition is mindset. One sticks, the other doesn’t.

• 🧠 Use neuroscience to rewire habits: Repetition and coaching create new neural pathways. It’s not fluff—it’s how transformation works.

• 🧩 Hardwire culture into your talent stack: Recruitment, onboarding, succession—they’re not separate from culture, they are culture.

Shelley didn’t talk about culture as a vibe—she talked about it as an operating system.

💡Want to lead real transformation? Start with the truth, invest in the brain, and make leaders your culture’s architects—not just its mouthpieces.