Leadership Levers
This podcast spotlights leaders' actions so they may enhance their organization’s performance and culture.
We feature CEOs and industry-recognized Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) who share their experiences and insights on three key challenges: people, performance, and profit.
If you are a leader who wants to learn from your peers about improving performance and financial returns, please join us.
Leadership Levers
Diagnosing Culture Before It Derails Performance with Eric Boromisa
What happens when the market isn’t the problem - but the messenger is?
Highlights Covered
- Why product strategy often turns into culture therapy
- A case study - success metrics masked a deeper cultural breakdown
- How fear of leadership can quietly derail execution
- Leadership takeaway: Start every meeting with “How are you doing today?”
Summary
This episode reveals how behind every market-facing issue - there may be a deeper cultural disconnect - and how the right questions can break the gridlock and unlock performance.
Will Gladhart is joined by Eric Boromisa, Managing Partner at Numbers & Letters Advisory - whose strategic consulting work often uncovers more than just product misalignment - it reveals hidden cultural roadblocks.
With years of experience helping companies develop an idea into reality, typically in tech, healthcare, wellness, corporate governance - he has a global leadership lens shaped by years of working in San Francisco and Berlin, Germany.
Eric shares a compelling case study of an industry association that, despite thriving on paper, couldn’t execute basic marketing campaigns.
The root issue? Fear and miscommunication.
Through careful diagnosis, cross-functional collaboration, and CEO engagement, Eric helped the organization address the cultural friction that was stalling growth.
This episode explores how leaders can treat organizational misalignment not just with strategy, but with empathy.
Eric offers one deceptively simple, but powerful practice - always start with the person. His advice reminds us that trust, not just process, is the foundation for performance.
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Welcome to the Leadership Levers Podcast. I'm your host, Will Gladhart, CMO at the Culture Think Tank. At the Culture Think Tank, we empower leaders with metrics that strengthen culture, drive performance and return. We're here today to learn about the actions leaders have taken to address organizational change. Today, our guest is Eric Boromisa, managing Partner at Numbers and Letters Advisory. Thanks so much for taking the time to join us. Thanks Will, appreciate being here, absolutely. Let's begin by having you share with our audience a bit about yourself, your background and your organization.
Eric Boromisa:Sure. So I run a product strategy advisory firm, so I help companies develop an idea into reality, typically in tech, healthcare, wellness, corporate governance in that area. And I live in Berlin, but I spent 20 years in San Francisco, so I kind of have that transatlantic partnership between the two going on. So for me it's been a nice road. I've been running my firm for 11 years and had about 47 clients, and so it's been a nice road.
William Gladhart:Very cool. Well, thanks for sharing that. So we'll be discussing three questions today as a warm-up to start our conversation. Would you share why you believe a healthy culture is critical?
Eric Boromisa:I get called in for projects all the time and it's you know, hey, you know, is our product not good? Like, are you missing the market or missing a trend? And I often play the role of corporate psychologist or like therapist for a business people in the trenches and you start to understand the gridlock, you start to understand the friction that comes with any workplace culture and so I find that I'm called in for maybe solving a market issue. But I often take some of that feedback or tea leaves, anonymize it and say go to the board and say so what I've been hearing is and that sort of breaks the ice and helps people. No one's to blame in situations where cultures maybe tend to be more fractious or has their attention, but I do think that's a necessary thing for a business to be happy and humming.
William Gladhart:Absolutely. I think that's a great point. So let's begin with question one. It's been our experience that leaders tend to struggle in three key areas people, process or profits. In your role as a strategic consultant, could you identify which of these areas, or combination of areas, presented a challenge with one of your clients or several clients?
Eric Boromisa:Oh yeah, actually I think one about eight years ago. You know, I was called in as an industry association. Their profits are great, they were growing, their performance looked great on paper, their membership was very engaged, but you but they weren't getting released and so, kind of working through that, I was able to raise it to leadership that there was a misunderstanding about what the expectations were to receive a marketing brief, launch a campaign, and so it wasn't even called in for a marketing project. It was actually a product thing, but it ended up being a cultural diagnosis. So, to answer your question, I was more of the people in that case.
William Gladhart:Yeah, interesting. I mean it does sound like it was a people, but it also impacted all the process and the business as well, which was trailing down into potentially impacting the finance. So it's always one of the three that impacts the other or it's all together. And, as you looked at that challenge, how did it negatively impact the organization overall?
Eric Boromisa:People were a little scared to bring things to the head of marketing. Frankly, like there was a little fear there. I think that once the CEO was aware of the problem and was able to coach the person and develop a better way of handling those situations, I think it smoothed out quite a bit and since then they've gone on to develop amazing content and they've grown exponentially since they've left. So I think they were able to actually address those concerns in a very graceful way.
William Gladhart:I appreciate that feedback because it's often the CEO suspects or identifies an issue but doesn't know how to really move the issue forward. So having an expert like yourself to kind of help connect the dots is really valuable. So what was the one thing that you identified that helped impact the culture positively, or that you have found impacts that across organizations?
Eric Boromisa:positively or that you have found impacts that across organizations. One thing that I thought was really impressive while I was there is actually they had a very cross-functional, almost like a Skunk Works multi-day meeting to kind of reboot the organization, like a 2.0 meeting of the mind, so like 50 people came together for like two days, three days and, yeah, it was really interesting to see from IT, from customer support, from content, from product, from legal, all just kind of brainstorming ideas together and I thought that was a really healthy way for an organization to sort of look at itself, know what's working, know what's not and come to some greater ground, and I was really glad to be a part of that.
William Gladhart:Yeah, I think that's a good strategy for helping people move forward and recognizing, identifying the problem and then moving the issue on. So, as we wrap up today, do you have any insight for fellow leaders that you have worked with, or just a general insight to share?
Eric Boromisa:Yeah, you know, I think a lot of people like to jump into business. They're very action-oriented or productive. I really think it's important to start with checking in with the person first. I almost always start my meetings and I have to supervise many people. How are you doing today? Understand if that person has a family or has an aging parent or a pet. What's going on in their life? That's not work. Don't be nosy, but just understand that you're treating a human in front of you. I think that's really important to build that trust and be a good leader.
William Gladhart:I'd love to hear that feedback and approach. I think addressing the whole person, but that also impacts into the culture, is really critical. Eric, I've enjoyed having you on our Leadership Lovers podcast. Thanks so much for your insights.
William Gladhart:Thanks a lot Will, great to be here.
William Gladhart:Thank you for joining us on the Leadership Levers Podcast. Find all our Leadership Levers episodes on the Culture Think Tank website at www. theculturethinktank. com, or listen on your favorite streaming platform. We'd love to hear from you about the challenges you have faced as a leader. Tune in weekly as we invite leaders to share their experiences in strengthening culture and performance, one action at a time.
