Valerie Polunas

What if some of the conflict in your organization isn’t about personalities at all? What if it’s baked into the policy itself? I call this conflict by design: when a workplace policy is written with good intent but enforced with rigid, one-size-fits-all rules that don’t match how work actually happens. The result? HR becomes the referee. Managers feel stuck. Employees compare notes. Trust takes a hit, and not because the policy was malicious, but because it was misaligned. Let’s explore how...

Culture is happening in your organization whether you designed it or not, and, if you’re an HR/People Leader, you already know the uncomfortable truth: stated values don’t create culture, behavior does.  Culture is what people do when deadlines hit, when someone is frustrated, when the “easy” shortcut is right there, and when conflict shows up in unexpected ways. Here’s what that looks like in the real world: Values are listed on the wall, but meetings feel unsafe . Leaders say “We value...

Most teams have a set of operating guidelines. They know their goals, deadlines, priorities, and metrics, but when tensions rise, teams struggle to stick to them. That’s because conflict rarely shows up in explicit ways. It shows up like this: A sharp tone in a meeting Avoidance after a disagreement Side conversations that turn into gossip Decisions that get revisited again and again A manager trying to “keep the peace” by lowering expectations If you’re an HR leader, you’ve probably seen...