What Should We Stop Doing? Monisha Longacre on Creating Space for Growth

What happens when organizations try to do everything at once?

In this episode of Leadership Levers, Monisha Longacre, founder of Productivity 101 and a fractional COO, shares why leadership today is less about doing more and more about creating clarity when there is constant change. 

Drawing from experience across enterprise organizations, startups, and growing businesses, Monisha explains why culture remains the foundation of both accomplishment and fulfillment - even as new technologies continue to reshape how we work. 

As leaders race to adopt AI and accelerate growth, Monisha believes many organizations are creating unnecessary pressure by pursuing too many priorities at once.

Monisha walks through:

•  Why people must remain at the center of organizational change 
•  How leaders unintentionally create anxiety by demanding more, faster 
•  The importance of prioritization, boundaries, and focus 
•  Why employees need to feel supported, motivated, and valued 
•  The overlooked leadership question: "What should we stop doing?" 
•  How creating space often unlocks better performance than adding more work. 

For leaders navigating growth, technology, and change, this conversation is a reminder: culture isn't built by doing more - it's built by helping people focus on what matters most.

Seeking to align your culture, boost performance & impact your bottom line? Let’s chat—no sales, just real talk about your challenges. Not ready? Join our PL3 Community for free insights & connections. 

Transcript

Welcome And Purpose

William Gladhart 0:00

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 Monisha Longacre, founder and CEO of Productivity 101 and a fractional COO for various businesses. Thank you so much for taking the time to join us.

Monisha Longacre 0:37

I'm so glad to be here. I'm really looking forward to our conversation. Thank you.

William Gladhart 0:41

Excellent.

Monisha’s Background And Productivity 101

William Gladhart 0:42

Let's begin by having you share a bit about yourself, your background, and your organization with our audience.

Monisha Longacre 0:48

Wonderful. Thank you. So my my my name is Moni Shillongacre. I started out in educ my education was in communications, and I had the fortunate trans uh I was fortunately ran into the internet very early in my career in the early 90s. And so most of my career was around digital media where we knew the internet was going to change how we communicated. Little did we know it was going to change how we did everything. And honestly, we're at the precipice of that again, right? Where we have a new technology that's really challenging how we think and how we operate, which has been very exciting. Spent 13 years at the Weather Channel, worked at various HR and ed tech startups, and then founded my own business, Productivity 101, mainly to help individuals, teams, and organizations figure out how to accomplish what matters most. And so, in my experience from big enterprise organizations to startups and to running my own business, you definitely see common themes that you can apply across the board to really help people find balance and achievement.

William Gladhart 1:56

Well, thank you so much for sharing that. We'll be discussing three questions today as a warm-up to our conversation.

Why Culture Matters In An AI Shift

William Gladhart 2:03

Would you share why you believe a healthy culture is critical?

Monisha Longacre 2:07

Well, culture is at the root of accomplishment and then also fulfillment, right? Because it's not only about getting things done, but enjoying what you're doing. And if you enjoy what you're doing, you will get results out of your people, out of your teams. And you can definitely see and feel a difference in those companies. And people are at the heart of that, right? And I think that's one of the things that I think we'll have to keep at the forefront as we go through this next technological innovation with AI is how do we continue to build our people, grow our people, and develop cultures that support them.

William Gladhart 2:41

I think that's a fantastic point. We've heard from a variety of CEOs about, oh, how my workforce is going to go away or how things are going to radically change. And I'm going, there still has to be people behind the customer service, the interface, the technology. That kind of leads us into question one.

Motivating People Through Uncertainty

William Gladhart 2:58

It's been our experience that leaders tend to struggle in three key areas people, process, and profit. In your role as CEO, or as you've worked with many other leaders, could you identify which of these three areas has been a typical challenge or something that where you helped others grow?

Monisha Longacre 3:16

And again, I think you kind of hit the nail on the head as when people are hearing this message that their jobs are going to be taken away or replaced or that, you know, their careers are going to be impacted. I think it goes back to the core of reminding our people and building into our cultures that in order to be most effective, we have to make sure they're motivated, that they feel supported, and that they're valued. And so I think we're kind of in this little bit of a disconnect sometimes with how we get our people to contribute and help us achieve our business goals when we're not helping them feel those things.

William Gladhart 3:54

Right. And certainly when a leader is telegraphing that positions may go away, that it's going to be disruptive to the organization without any sort of plan beyond just hearsay, that certainly makes it difficult for the culture and performance to grow and continue to benefit the organization. Is there a specific challenge or something that you worked with a leader on that negatively impacted an organization around culture performance?

Speed Pressure And Clear Priorities

Monisha Longacre 4:22

Yeah, and I think again, we're facing this a lot more in this because everything's moving so quickly now and so fast. And we want to do everything all at once. And that's really difficult, right? And I think our leaders are really challenged with this concept of speed and achievement. And we need to do everything and we need to do it now. And the mess and we need more, right? I think this AI culture has created the sense of we need more content and we need it faster, we need it bigger and better and more and more. And I think for our people, that's a really tough message. Where, you know, I think as leaders, we'll be a lot more effective if we can be really clear about priorities, focus, what's really important, and helping everybody on the team understand that while we can't do it all at once, here are the things that are most important. And then modeling prioritization, learning how to make sure that we're protecting boundaries, not saying no, but learning how to say yes, but, right? Like I'm not gonna say no, but let's make sure that we're still focusing on the things that are most important. And so really trying to put some of those tactics and then model some of those behaviors from the top down to support the people who have to get the work done.

William Gladhart 5:41

Yeah, I love that you uh mentioned the behavior element, but also putting boundaries and putting parameters around the things that need to happen because everything seems to be in such a short timeline or attention span, or those are certainly things that can negatively impact an organization and people. What's one thing that you've identified in the work you do with various leaders that has helped impact culture or communication positively?

The Power Of A Stop Doing List

Monisha Longacre 6:06

So this might sound backwards, but it's been very effective. Is when we do brainstormings. I did a focus group this week with an organization where we were doing a team brainstorming activity. And this happens a lot with leadership teams and during the strategic planning process. Everybody talks about all the things we should be doing. Add more, right? Let's do this and let's do this and let's do this. But the one thing I try to redirect and focus on is what are we going to stop doing? What are the things that we've been doing for a long time that may not be getting the results that we want or are taking a lot of time that really aren't being used, like reports that nobody's looking at, and really hone in on those opportunities to build the time and the space to add in something else?

William Gladhart 6:52

I think that's fantastic advice. It pairs very well with a lot of the work that we do, where we ask staff what they need from their leader, what they need their leader to stop, start, and continue doing. And often the start is the action, but the stop is the opportunity, as you mentioned, to stop doing things that are not conducive to employees, not conducive to culture and performance, and also pause for to create that space for new starts. I really like that you you take the same approach as going a little backwards and counterintuitive as we wrap up.

Monisha Longacre 7:27

And I love that tool, but I wonder if you find the same thing I do is that the shortest list is the stop list.

William Gladhart 7:33

Yes. Yes, quite frequently, and because because individuals aren't used to thinking about stopping or giving up because the message is always how do we do more, how do we accomplish more? And you can't accomplish more in terms of performance unless you've shed things that aren't working, that aren't productive, that aren't creating profit, that aren't streamlining your operations and processes. Yeah, we're very aligned in that in terms of that.

Feedback, Value, And Closing Invite

William Gladhart 8:00

So as as we wrap up today, is there anything else you'd like to share with fellow leaders?

Monisha Longacre 8:05

Don't be afraid to give feedback, encourage, and make sure that people are feeling valued.

William Gladhart 8:12

Yeah, I love that. Uh so Manisha, I've enjoyed having you on our Leadership Lovers podcast today. Thank you again for your time and your insights.

Monisha Longacre 8:20

Absolutely. Thank you.

William Gladhart 8:25

Thank you for joining us on the Leadership Lovers Podcast. Find all our Leadership Lovers episodes on the Culture Think Tank website at www.theculture think tank.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.