Peg Neuhauser

Peg Neuhauser is a management and organizational consultant, speaker, and author who has spent more than thirty years helping organizations build stronger cultures, resolve conflict, and prevent burnout. Her practical, humor-filled presentations give leaders and teams actionable strategies they can implement immediately to improve collaboration, communication, and performance.

Building Cultures That Drive Results

Neuhauser specializes in corporate culture, cross-functional teamwork, and organizational storytelling. Her four books, including Corporate Legends & Lore, Tribal Warfare in Organizations, Culture.com, and I Should Be Burnt Out by Now, So How Come I’m Not?, provide frameworks for understanding how stories, habits, and unwritten norms shape workplace dynamics. She shows leaders how to leverage these forces to build cultures that attract talent, retain employees, and focus teams on achieving organizational goals.

Practical Expertise Across Industries

With a master’s degree in psychology and undergraduate work in sociology from studies in the United States and England, Neuhauser brings a research-informed yet highly practical perspective to every engagement. Prior to founding her consultancy in 1984, she worked at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and as an internal consultant for Hospital Corporation of America. Her client base spans healthcare, high tech, finance, and publishing.

Neuhauser’s keynotes and workshops leave audiences equipped with down-to-earth strategies for strengthening culture, improving collaboration, and building resilience in an era of constant change.

The New Normal . . .Rethinking the Way You Lead  (for managers); Moving On . . .Healing from the Turmoil and Adapting to the New Realities (for employees).

Uncertainty is the word that best captures the thinking of most individuals and organizations these days.  People say it’s like working in a fog.  Is the recession really over?  Will things return to normal?  If so, when?  If not, what will the new normal be, and how do we succeed in that world?  What do 90% of top execs rank as the critical organizational skill needed today–agility.  Here are some practical definitions of what they mean by organizational agility:

• Capacity to identify and capture opportunities more quickly than a rival does
• Combining patience and boldness
• Being ready to move the moment the fog lifts just enough so the choice is more than a crap shoot, but before things are clear to everyone including competitors

Help your leaders and employees understand the new normal in your organization and adapt as leaders and employees to these new realities.

Rethinking the Way You Lead topics:

• Resist the temptation to spread the pain evenly through the organization. Consolidate your resources.
• Beware of being too confident of your old leadership habits–challenge your own and each others logic, plans, assumptions, and behaviors.
• Rigid calendar-based budgeting or planning processes are not agile.
• Consider rewarding adequate performance with a generous severance package.  Adequate performances don’t produce agile organizations.
• Cross-functional teamwork needs to be fast and fluid.  Turf battles or endless meetings do not produce agility.
• Reward people for feeding the collective IQ–sharing knowledge and advice that help other teams succeed.
• Get honest about the “total cost of jerks” to your organization.  You can’t afford them anymore.
• Clone your “speed & agility” successes from one area of the organization to another.
• If you’re a control freak, get over it.  Control freaks are not agile leaders.  Control wisely, not constantly.