LEADING WITH VALUES, DECIDING AS TEAMS

March 23–25, 2026
SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

Join us in San Antonio, Texas on March 23–25 and you will walk away with tools and methods for Leading with Values and Deciding as Teams that you can apply immediately with your team.

No recycled pitch decks. No buzzword bingo (AI, disruption, synergy, etc.). Just real, tested tools from leaders who know firsthand how to lead with values and decide as teams.

If you influence how your team or organization leads by value and decides by teams —whether you're a senior leader, HR innovator, coach, or culture shaper—this conference is for you.

Speakers are fully engaged participants for the entire conferences, not fly-in just before their presentation and fly-out right afterwards.

Note about the presentations:

• This is an educational conference for every leader of every team.
• Each session includes interaction with the audience and deliberate time for questions and answers.
• Presentation materials are for visual support and not as a script to speak from.

Details

PLACE AND DATE

IGH Holiday Inn Riverwalk in San Antonio, Texas (217 N. St. Mary's Street | San Antonio, Texas 78205 | T: (210) 271512). Dates are March 23–25, 2026. The conference adjourns at 12:00 noon on March 25.

WHY ATTEND?

✅ For leaders who do (not just discuss).

This is a working session for practitioners. You'll leave with frameworks to:

• Align actions with values—even when it's hard.
• Resolve conflicts between personal, team, and organizational values.
• Embed values into daily decisions—so they're more than posters on a wall.

✅ WHO IS THIS CONFERENCE FOR?

• Executives shaping culture from the top.
• HR & L&D leaders tired of vague "values initiatives."
• Coaches & consultants who need better tools for clients.
• Team leaders ready to make values actionable.

Speakers and Agenda

Our speakers are experts in Leading with Values, Deciding as Teams- and they'll be fully engaged participants for the entire conference, not just fly-in presenters. We do not have the roverbial "Keynoters". To us, all of our speakers are keynoters.

Monday, March 23

Agenda Facilitator:  Dan McDonough

• 8:00 a.m. – 8:15 a.m.  Welcome

• 8:15 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. Dr. Ed Gurowitz, Integrated Business Solutions, Reno, Nevada.

  

  Ed, author of Transformation: From Potential to Practice (2025) and Inclusion, The Role of Leadership (2019), will present at Leading with Values, Deciding as Teams. His session equips leaders with practical strategies and actionable tools to build truly values-driven organizations. Participants will learn how to align personal and organizational values, foster accountability and engagement, and ensure every decision reflects core principles—driving innovation, cohesion, and lasting impact across their teams and organizations.

• 9:00 a.m. – 9:45 a.m. Adam Asch, Chief Strategy Consultant, Balanced Scorecard Institute, Atlanta, Georgia.

  

  In this session, Adam challenges the conventional idea that business strategy and culture are separate or even competing forces. Instead, he demonstrates how successful organizations view business strategy as the embodiment of culture in action—where values, behaviors, and goals are fully aligned. Through real-world examples and practical guidance, this talk empowers leaders to intentionally integrate culture and strategy for lasting, adaptive impact across sectors.

• 9:45 - 10:15 a.m.  Break

• 10:15– 11:00 a.m. Dr. Laura Hamill, CEO, Paris Phoenix Group, Woodinville, WA.

  

  Laura is the author of "The Power of Culture" (2024). Culture drives organizational challenges and successes, yet leaders often struggle to harness it. Company values articulate aspirational culture, but making them real is difficult. My talk explores why understanding culture and living values is critical for success. I'll share my Intentional Culture Circle framework (from The Power of Culture) in an interactive session, offering actionable steps to avoid cultural betrayal and build the right culture.

• 11:00 a.m. – 11:45 a.m. John Jeanetta, President & CEO, and Marissa Hattab, Chief Culture Officer, Heartland Family Service.

  

  In this interactive session, you will learn how a 150-year-old nonprofit transformed its operations to one of shared governance that embeds core values into shared daily decision-making. We will present our experience and framework for empowering teams with real decision-making authority, fostering trust and engagement while maintaining alignment with mission-driven principles.

• 11:45 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.  Lunch Break

• 1:30 – 2:15 p.m. Christopher Seifert, Enabling Empowerment, Raleigh, North Carolina.

  

  Effective team decisions start with shared values and a clear decision process. In this interactive session, you'll explore a practical framework that helps teams decide faster, with less friction and greater alignment. Learn how to reduce bottlenecks, avoid common decision pitfalls like bias and anchoring, and connect every choice to your organization's goals. Through real examples and hands-on practice, you'll gain tools to teach this approach to your teams—empowering them to make confident, consistent decisions rooted in shared purpose and values.

• 2:15 – 3:00 p.m. Dori Eversmann, Resilient Relationships Group, Austin, Texas.

  

  Strong teams thrive on values-driven communication—but even experienced leaders can struggle to listen effectively and build trust under pressure. In this session, Dori reveals the biggest barrier to effective communication and how values-based leadership is reflected in how we listen and respond. You'll learn to be an active listener and apply key feedback skills that strengthen collaboration, gaining practical tools to help your team decide together, build trust, and lead with shared values.

• 3:00 – 3:30 p.m.  Break

• 3:30 – 4:15 p.m.  Dan McDonough, Vital Leadership, Kansas City, Missouri.

  

  When team cultures are fragmented and people don't share a common understanding of core truths or values, they end up frustrated, disconnected, and drained—missing out on the energy and fulfillment that strong cultures can bring. Dan will present a new approach with clear tools, methods, and practices to guide behavior, reduce uncertainty, and build alignment.

• 4:15 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. Tabitha Pope, Community Culture Engagement Manager, Oklahoma City Housing Authority (OCHA), Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

  

  I invite participants to reimagine leadership through a values-driven lens, where humility, compassion, and moral clarity spark true transformation. Through personal stories and practical insights, she shows how leaders can heal cultural fatigue, rebuild trust, and create workplaces where people feel safe, valued, and purposeful. Attendees will gain strategies to uncover blind spots, reconnect teams, and lead with heart—restoring hope, meaning, and belonging while strengthening culture and community relationships.

Tuesday, March 24

Agenda Facilitator: Les Landes

• 8:00 a.m.– 8:15 a.m.  Time to go again.

• 8:15 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. Dr. Shibani Belwalker, Founder, Theory of Purpose, Mumbai, India.

  

  In today's multigenerational workplace, aligning diverse values is key to high performance. Dr. Shibani Belwalkar explores how generational differences, when leveraged intentionally, can drive collaboration and success. Using behavioral insights, she demonstrates values-driven decision-making to bridge divides and foster shared purpose. Learn actionable strategies to build accountability, competitive advantage, and a culture where purpose fuels performance. Ideal for leaders turning culture into capability.

• 9:00 a.m. – 9:45 a.m. Anu Mandapati, CEO, Qultured, Austin, Texas.

  

  Anu will present Culture Design Mapping—a framework that helps leaders align their organization's values with day-to-day team performance. She'll share practical tools to close the gap between what teams say they value and how they actually operate. Attendees will learn how to make values visible in everyday decisions and behaviors, creating real alignment and improved outcomes. Participants will take away a clear, actionable way to bring their values to life and boost team performance.

• 9:45 – 10:15 a.m.  Break

• 10:15 – 11:00 a.m. Alberto Garcia-Jurado. CEO, Inzync, Austin, Texas.

  

  Alberto, author of Culture and Globalization, Cultural Intelligence for the 21st Century, and True Collaboration: Beyond Culture, reveals why most collaboration efforts fail—costing businesses over $37 billion annually. Despite new tools and apps, 60% of today’s problems mirror those from 50 years ago. This session challenges outdated models, showing leaders how to treat collaboration as a living operating system—rooted in strong structural design and fundamentals—to drive lasting, effective teamwork.

• 11:00 a.m. – 11:45 a.m. Angela Briggs-Paige, Chief People Officer, Acelero, Inc., Nashville, Tennessee.

  

  In moments of disruption or change, values become our most powerful tool to rebuild what matters: trust. This session is about designing - not defaulting - your way back to alignment, connection, and performance. This presentation introduces a 4-phase framework along with practical rituals and dialogue tools leaders can use immediately to restore alignment, connection, and cultural clarity. I believe this conference is vital because we need more honest conversations and actionable tools to restore and reimagine culture through values.

• 11:45 a.m. - 1:30 p.m.  Lunch Break

• 1:30 p.m. – 2:15 p.m. Ted Garnett, CEO, PS Culture Matters, Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

  

  PS Culture Matters has spent over 30 years measuring Core Values Execution (CVE) across both for-profit and nonprofit sectors, collecting hundreds of thousands of data points. In this session, you'll gain evidence-based, ROI-focused insights into why CVE matters, the five most common mistakes organizations make, and how to evaluate your current efforts. Discover the financial impact of poor CVE and how to integrate it into your strategic plan to ensure your work aligns with executive goals.

• 2:15 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. Dr. Joy Kouns Lewis, Vice President of Human Resources, Children's Hunger Alliance, Dublin, Ohio.

  

  Hiring for cultural fit is critical to long-term employee success and organizational health. This presentation equips hiring managers and HR professionals with tools to assess alignment between candidates' values, behaviors, and the organization's mission and culture. With poor cultural fit contributing to high turnover, disengagement, and workplace conflict, learning how to effectively screen for it ensures stronger team cohesion, performance, and retention. Attendees will leave with practical frameworks, questions, and red flags to guide their selection process.

• 3:00 – 3:30 p.m.  Break

• 3:30 – 4:15 p.m. Anedra Eatman, VP of People Operations, Nexben, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

  

  In today's dynamic business environment, values-driven leadership is essential for fostering trust, collaboration, and ethical decision-making. Teams that align around shared principles make stronger, more resilient choices. At this conference, I will present actionable tools to turn values into practice, including a people model to define core behaviors, a culture model to align policies, strategies for embedding diversity and inclusion, a two-year implementation plan, and methods for continuous feedback.

• 4:15 – 5:00 p.m. Jennifer Hancock, Humanistic Learning Systems, Chattanooga, Tennessee.

  

  Good decisions start with clarity—knowing exactly what “good” means. That clarity comes from your values, which set the standard for evaluating choices. But the real challenge is applying those values consistently while honoring diverse team perspectives. In this session, you’ll learn to translate core values into practical decision-making tools, explore a simple framework for alignment, and leave equipped to make values visible, actionable, and inclusive in every team decision.

Wednesday, March 25

Agenda Facilitator:  Dan McDonough and Jerry Wagner

• 8:00 – 8:45 a.m.  Dr. Jeff Ressinger, Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer, The University of Kansas Health System, Kansas City, Missouri.

  

  Dr. Risinger will present how foundational core values play in the process of executive coaching. Specifically, a model will be shared called the ALLEVIO Model which builds a personal leadership strategy map through the coaching process where all aspects of executive growth and development are built on the base of a leaders personal core values. Topics such as communicating, leading and solving problems from the perspective of foundational values will be addressed.

• 8:45 – 9:30 a.m.  Audrey Wyatt, Chief Culture Coach, Leaders and Lifters, Dallas, Texas.

  

  In fast-paced workplaces, teams often react to surface-level symptoms, overlooking the deeper values shaping decisions. This session will present how to uncover hidden dynamics—unspoken assumptions, cultural norms, and core values—that impact transparency and trust in decision-making. Using the Iceberg Model, we'll explore how misaligned values lead to poor outcomes, even with good intentions. Leaders will also learn the Inspired Teams™ Framework, a tool to align decisions with shared values, fostering clarity and trust.

• 9:30 – 10:00 a.m.  Break

• 10:00 – 10:45 a.m. Jeremy Edmonds, Executive Vice President People, Snooze an A.M. Eatery, Denver, Colorado.

  

  In this session, audiences will learn the powerful equation that drives the creation of a healthy and vibrant workplace culture. Through powerful storytelling and a framework rooted in understanding your business, who you serve and the impact you have, you’ll discover how to elevate your culture and create a place where everyone thrives. Jeremy will provide actionable steps that empower you to lean into your culture by fostering an environment that nurtures both people and performance. By recognizing and developing the potential in each team member, organizations unlock the true multiplier of culture — IMPACT.

• 10:45 – 11:30 Doug Kirkpatrick, Founder and CEO, D'Artagnan Advisors

  

  The times demand we pay special attention to human values as AI and other converging tech presents leaders with tough choices between augmenting people or replacing them. Philosopher Peter Koestenbaum said that we’re the first generation required to manage our own mutation. Doug Kirkpatrick will share Koestenbaum’s powerful Leadership Diamond® model for accountable, values-based decision making that participants can immediately apply in their organizations as well as their personal lives.

• 11:30 - noon  Adjourn and safe travels home.

Registration and Price

Lock in the early bird rate now. Registration is capped at 75 persons with no more than 2 persons per company. The Cultures in Action Corporation is a nonprofit benefit corporation and the extra modest fees are to recover actual cost and break even.

• The registration price during October is $495
• The registration price during November is $695
• The registration price during December is $895
• The registration price after January 1 is $1195

Cancellation policy: No refunds for participant cancellations. If the conference is postponed or cancelled there will be full refunds.

Lodging

There are several lodging options near to the meeting location. To reserve a room at the IHG Holiday Inn Riverwalk, you can phone in your room reservation ask for the Cultures in Action rate of $169. Or, you can use this link to register on line for $171.

It is our understanding that hotel reservations are not refundable. Our hotel contract says, "Reservations received after March 1, 2026 will be provided on a space-available basis at the hotel's current selling rate." So, you have a lot of time. One never knows what might happen to change travel plans, so be aware of the hotel's no cancellation policy.

Conference Sponsor

Cultures in Action, a nonprofit benefits corporation focused on practical culture transformation.

www.culturesinaction.com

Call For Speakers

If you would like to be a speaker at the conference, please let us know. If we have openings we'll let you know. If not this time, we'll contact you for a future time.

Questions?

Reply or email jerry.wagner@culturesinaction.com. No bots—just humans here.